


Spirit and Guts

by EtoilesEtChats



Series: A Sister By Any Other Name [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, College Years, Family, Gen, Pre-Series, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 88,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6245662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtoilesEtChats/pseuds/EtoilesEtChats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how the Beckett sisters came together as best friends and survived together after their mother's death. They weren't always best friends until life forced them to be, nor are they made of sugar and spice and everything nice: but spirit and guts.</p><p>"Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.<br/>Some girls are made of adventure and fine beer, brains and no fear."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spineless

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Castle or any of the characters.
> 
> Kate seems a bit OOC as a rebellious young college student and older sister in this, but bear with me, it'll come around soon! I hope this isn't too angsty for you all!

Ali unlocked the mailbox to their apartment, and found today’s mail in there. She leafed through it: she and Katie shared the responsibility of dragging their father to the breakfast nook to make him write out the checks for the bills. It was mostly Katie, and she stood by and watched. There was one from NYU for Katherine H. Beckett from the Exchange Student Program.  _ Hmmm, _ Ali thought.

“Alison? Alison Beckett?”

_ Crap, _ she thought, stuffing the envelopes into her purse. Her father’s landlord was trying to wave her down from the lobby. She could pretend she didn’t hear him, but then again, she had to wait on the elevator, and he’s catch up with her there.

“Alison, wait a moment,” he said.

Ali turned around, “Hi, Mr. Bailey!” she said brightly, although she was dreading what he was probably going to tell her: their father had passed out in the laundry room, he had gotten in a fight with another resident today while she was at school, or he had vomited and passed out somewhere in the building. “How are you?”

“Alison, I was trying to catch your sister to let you know, since I haven’t seen your father all week- but the rent’s late.”

Ali’s cheeks burned. “I’m sure we just misplaced the check. I’ll have it to you by Friday,” she promised, although there was no way in her meager bank account from her part-time job at bodega around the corner that she could cover it. She felt her cheeks burning.

The worst thing she could do was tell someone what was going on. How did she tell Becca that Dad had fallen behind on the rent, again? How embarrassing!  _ This wouldn’t have happened if Mom was alive, _ she thought bitterly. If her father had blown this much money again, good luck with a seventeenth birthday party.

“If you don’t get it to me by then, he’s in violation of his lease, and we’ll have to start the process of eviction. I can’t have residents be this late every month,” he said.

Ali’s humiliation burned even deeper: they had been pretty well off. This was a nice, pre-war apartment building in downtown, and they were lucky to live here in a three-bedroom. There weren’t a lot of affordable three-bedrooms in Manhattan. She felt some blind rage at their father, too.

“We’ll get it to you, promise,” Ali said, turning on her heel, a smile frozen on her face.

Upstairs, she discovered the carton of ice cream was sitting out, now soup, on the kitchen counter. Had her father even gone into work today? The ice cream had to have been set out this morning, it was so room-temperature. She put it away and considered calling his office to remind him, but changed her mind. Her father usually wrote her off and hung up on her when she confronted him, and ignored her requests. He listened a little more to Katie. The joke in their family had always been,  _ Hey, what does Ali want? I don’t know, ask Katie. _ She’d tell Katie when she got home. Nobody listened to her, anyway, but everybody could tell her how she screwed up. She tried to imitate the spaghetti sause recipe Mom had taught her a few years ago, but she realized they didn’t have the ingredients. Wasn’t it enough that she had had to quit dance so she could get a job, with Dad being so inconsistent?

The door to their apartment opened, and Katie came in, wearing her Doc Martins and overalls.

“Dad’s late on the rent again,” Ali greeted her.

Katie sighed, tossing her backpack down on the kitchen chair. “Excellent. Didn’t you  _ say _ something to him?”

“I say a lot of things to him, but he doesn’t listen,” Ali muttered.

“Maybe it’s because you need to speak a little more assertively to him,” Katie responded, sounding aggravated, getting a Diet Coke out of the fridge, cracking the top open. “I can’t believe you let him fall so far behind! Aren’t you keeping up with this stuff?”

“Aren’t you?” Ali responded angrily.

Katie looked like she was going to punch her for a moment, and instead, she unwound her scarf from her neck. “I’m going to work on my homework. I’ve got a test in Criminal Sociology on Friday.”

* * *

Dad sauntered in around ten. Ali had gotten into bed, and Katie had locked herself in her room after dinner. Ali had left her father a note letting him know about the rent. This way, he couldn’t lose his temper with her for “not letting me know” about something important if she had physical, written evidence.

“‘the hell did that get there?” she heard her father slur. “Katie! Alison! Why the hell was the kitchen table moved?”

Ali’s best bet was to pretend to be asleep. She reached over and turned on the clock radio softly, so she could listen to Sara Evans instead of her father’s drunken slurs. She closed her eyes in the darkness. She heard something crash and break, like glass, making her jump.

“Goddamnit!” her father shouted.

_ I’m asleep, I’m asleep, I’m asleep!  _ Ali thought. Her door burst open. Being as her room was the first down the hallway, it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it always made her jump.

“You can’t hear a damn thing I said, because you’ve got the radio on, listening to that goddamn stupid music, like In Slink-”

Ali sat up in the bed. “Daddy, the rent’s late-” her voice sounded tiny and weak.

“I don’t get why in the hell you gotta little to little whores like Britney Spears-”

“Dad, I don’t listen to her-” Ali muttered weakly. How was he missing the No Doubt poster on her wall, too? And the Bryan White one, too? Her father picked up one her old  _ pointe  _ slippers, tugging on the ribbon.

“-when in the hell did it become okay for singers to do strip teases on national television, that’s why I yanked you out of dance classes, I don’t want my daughters being sluts, why didn’t I put you Catholic school like Ma said-” He pulled the ribbon on her slipper hard enough, and it tore off. “Damn! You’d think they’d sew these things on better!”

“Dad!” Katie’s voice rang out. She came into the room, in her pajamas, glaring. “Dad, she’s trying to sleep, she’s got school at eight tomorrow, alright?”

“Katie?” her father turned around, squinting to focus on his oldest daughter. “The hell did you get home?”

“I’ve been home all night. Did you know the rent’s past due?”

“What?” he asked incredulously. “I just paid that shit last month!” He burst out laughing at his own joke.

Katie and Ali didn’t laugh. “Write the check,” she said. “I’ll run it down to the property manager’s office on my way to school tomorrow, alright? Go to bed. Ali’s trying to sleep.”

“I had a… a… a movie I wanted to watch…”

“Dad, what the hell?” Katie asked, sounding aggravated. She put her hands on their father’s shoulders to guide him out of Ali’s room. Ali listened as her father got into the bed, noticing dumb stuff around his room, slurring, and knocking things over, Katie trying to get him into bed, yelling at him. 

Ali got up and picked up her ruined pointe slipper. She held onto them because they reminded her of when she felt strong and confident. She never felt strong and confident at home anymore. She felt humiliated almost constantly, and frustrated to boot. She wasn’t as outgoing and smart as Katie. She only felt smart and strong when she danced, and now Dad had told her he wasn’t paying for her to study at the ABT anymore, just winter guard. He had never shown up at her recitals and he sure as hell never came to any of the Winter Guard competitions, even when Stuyvesant High’s guard had gotten into national finals. And now, he had torn the ribbon on her last precious  _ pointe _ slipper that her mother had sewn on.

Katie stuck her head into Ali’s room. “He broke a vase.”

“Well, thanks for informing me,” Ali replied, pulling the blanket over her chest again.

“Will you clean that up for me before you leave for school?” Katie responded, eyes narrowing.

“Why me?”

“Because I’m taking the rent check down to Queens,” Katie shouted, as if Ali was stupid. Everything made her blow up, the moment something irritated her. _She didn't use to be like that,_ Ali thought bitterly.

“You got him to write it?” Ali gawked. He was so drunk, he was walking into things just now.

Katie rolled her eyes. “All you have to do is  _ ask, _ Ali. God, you’re almost seventeen, and you’re acting like an airheaded twelve-year-old...”

“I tried!”

“ _ Do or do not, there is no try _ .”

Ali felt like punching Katie for quoting Yoda. She hated it when Katie acted like her best effort wasn’t enough, and mocked her for it. Katie was getting so insensitive and mean. And she was worse about it since Mom had been murdered. She didn’t used to be like this. “Get out of my room,” Ali snapped.

“Gladly!” Katie said with mock enthusiasm, tossing her hands in the air.

* * *

With all this fighting and disruptiveness in the Beckett’s home, Ali knew her request for a birthday party would be met with the regular aggravation and mockery she was getting used to from her father and sister. It would seem selfish and unnecessary. Her sister was getting hardened and cynical, her father was just being an alcoholic asshole as of late. On the morning of Ali’s birthday, Katie had left early to get a little more studying in before her Criminal Sociology exam, but there was a cupcake in a clear plastic food container left out on the counter with a candle in it and a birthday card addressed to her in her sister’s handwriting.

She opened the envelope, and there was cutesy card for her, telling her happy birthday, and Katie had written something generic about how much she loved Ali and hoped she had a special day, and that she wanted to take her out to a Yoga class and a birthday dinner.

For a moment, Ali forgave her sister for how harsh her behavior was becoming. She felt a little hope. Maybe things would start turning around. She’d be more assertive and direct, and not such a spineless wimp, not so dependent on Katie. 


	2. Birthday Tears

The yoga class had relaxed Ali and she had looked forward to it. Things seemed a little better with Katie tonight, and they were going to Ali’s favorite restaurant for dinner. 

This was good. As the wait staff came in singing  _ Happy Birthday  _ to her with a slice of double-chocolate ganache cake, someone pushed the girl aside, knocking her over, and she saw a hand holding a vodka tonic, her stomach sinking.

“Dad?” Ali cried, horrified.

His eyes were glassy, but they narrowed at her. “What the hell is this? You’re too embarrassed to be seen with your ol’ dad anymore? What kind of daughters-”

“Dad,” Katie said in a sharp, deep voice, her own eyes narrowed at him. “Don’t do this here.” 

“I didn’t  _ ask _ you!” he slurred, eyes blazing at Katie. “Who the hell do you think you are, your mother?”

A sob escaped Ali before she even realized it: how dare he come in here, assault a waitress and then bring up Mom? All the patrons of the restaurant were staring at them, it was dead silent, save for the noise from the kitchen.

“Wow, really nice, I didn’t even have a baby, and now I have to take care of someone else’s kid because they’re too trashed to remember their own kid’s birthday,” Katie snarled, throwing her napkin down, standing up. Ali felt like she had been punched in the stomach at that. “That’s real fair, Dad. How dare you mess up her birthday dinner? Did you even remember it’s Ali’s birthday-”

“Sir,” the restaurant manager elbowed his way over, interrupting.

“--no, you didn’t because you’re such a shithead,” Katie continued. 

“Miss!” the manager shouted at Katie. Katie stopped, mid-sentence. The man took the glass out of Dad’s hand, surprising him. “Sir, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave, or I can call the cops. You’re disturbing our patrons.”

“Me?” Dad snarled. “ _ I’m  _ making a scene? These two obnoxious little shits that call me their father excluded me-”

“Dad!” Katie shouted.

Ali just wanted to disappear. All these people were watching her cry was her worst nightmare. She could just imagine it going around school, let alone Xanga, that her father had called her an obnoxious little shit in front a whole restaurant full of people on her birthday. It was supposed to be her special day.

“Sir, I’m calling the cops-”

“Fine, I’m leaving.” He pointed at Ali. “ _ They _ can pay my bar tab, those little bitches.” He stumbled away.

“Goddamnit,” Katie muttered, getting her purse off the back of the chair to dig out the money from her wallet. “Fine.” She threw some cash down on the table, probably too much for their bill and the bar tab. “Ali, let’s go.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Ali mumbled, getting up.

“Wait, where are you going?” Katie called after her. She probably hadn’t heard her anyway. Nobody ever did. All they could see was how ugly their family was getting and how stupid and airheaded Ali was that she couldn’t stop things from going to hell.

* * *

Ali locked herself in the handicapped stall to cry for a few minutes and dab at her tears. Why didn’t her prayers work? Why did she go to mass alone every Sunday morning and pray for Mom and for her family and why did she try to be so perfect and not complain only to have her father and Katie yell at her all the time? Why wasn’t she good enough that her family wanted to fix themselves? Going to restaurants always made her think of Katie’s welcome home party at Thanksgiving two years ago, when she had been at Stanford in California, when Mom never arrived. They were all mad at her until they arrived home to find a police detective waiting. Ali had just crumbled to the floor, screaming and wailing at the news. Katie had broken down into tears, and their father’s expression just went… hard.

Nothing had ever been the same since then.

“Ali?” Katie called. “Are you in here?”

She swallowed a sob, but it was louder than she thought. Katie rattled the stall door. 

“The manager just told us not to ever come back,” Katie grumbled. “Let’s get out of here... Ali, did you hear me? Come on, quit jerking off and let’s hail a taxi! I’m going to break the door down if you keep this shit up!”

Ali, scared, knowing Katie was physically cable of it, unlatched the door with shaking hands, and Katie met her with a scowl. 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here-”

“Do you have to swear like that?” Ali snapped.

Katie looked a little taken aback. “What?” she asked, surprised.

“You’ve got such a trashy mouth, Katie, it’s embarrassing. Did you learn that from your trashy biker friends?” Ali snapped, feeling better. Katie was talking to her like she had done something wrong, when she had just been celebrating her birthday.

“I’ll talk like however the fuck I want,” Katie snapped, following her out of the bathroom.

“I’m the only person in this family with standards, I guess,” Ali muttered.

“You ungrateful little asshole. I just took you out for your birthday and-”

“I’m taking the metro home,” Ali responded. “You take the cab.”

“Bitch,” Katie muttered under her breath as Ali stepped out the front door.

* * *

The apartment had been tense as a warzone when Ali got home. Both of them were storming around, nobody was talking, and they all were angry with each other.

_ Some birthday,  _ Ali thought bitterly.

The front door opened, and she heard her father coughing and grumbling under his breath. She got up and locked her bedroom door to keep him out.

She snuggled into her bed, and got out the sewing kit to repair her  _ pointe _ slipper’s ribbon, measuring out some thread. Mom had taught her how to sew on the ribbons, and she did it so much better than Ali herself did, stitches were more even. While Katie found the womanly arts drôle and boring, Ali dove into them. Katie, on the otherhand, was the tomboy, who loved sports and playing with the boys. Ali used to love baking for her family, her friends and teachers, and was always so proud of herself. She had sewn the quilt on her bed with Mom when she was eight. Her mother had taught her cross stitch and embroidery and how to knit and crochet, and a majority of their projects were all over her room. Ali didn’t ever want to throw them out. It would be like what the murderer did to their mom: throwing her in garbage. That aspect of the case had burned a hole inside Ali that hadn’t healed; Mom had been left to rot in a pile of garbage. It had been so recent, but then again, so long ago in Ali’s mind. Sometimes, she had hard time remembering little things about her mother, like the shape of her fingernails as she sewed, or the recipe for her raisin oatmeal cookies, which Ali had once known by heart. Ali wished she could have one right now, but then again, she’d have to leave the bedroom and go to the kitchen to find her mother’s recipe box, and risk running into Dad or Katie. She wished she still had close friends, but she had pushed them all away out fear that they’d see how tumultuous and dysfunctional her family was, and how much of a piece of garbage Ali herself was for not being able to stop it.

There was a sudden click, making Ali jump, as someone tried to turn the doorknob. “Thanks for knocking,” Ali muttered.

“Ali?” her father shouted. “I got something for ya!”

Ali cautiously got up and unlocked the door, and her father opened it, hitting her big toe with the corner of it. He reeked of gin, but he was holding a paper sack.

“I didn’t forget your birthday, alright?” he slurred, holding out the sack.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she murmured, accepting the sack when she really wanted to scream at him for embarrassing her so badly at the restaurant. She hadn’t done anything other than been born today, and that was enough to get her banned for life. She opened the paper sack, and it was Hello Kitty stickers. Ali liked Hello Kitty. He had obviously found them at the drugstore on the way home. The receipt was still in the bag, he hadn’t even thought to throw it out. It proved her right when she pulled it out of the bag and read the date and time.

“You like ‘em?” he asked.

“I do. Thank you.” She forced a closed-lip smile. Just had he hadn’t gotten her a damn thing until he had embarrassed her in public made her feel like throwing them in his face.

“Yeah, I’m so sure you really like ‘em. Katie did soo much better.”

“Well, actually, Daddy, she did.”

“She’s just trying to make herself feel better. You know she’s going to the Ukraine for a year, right?”

Ali felt like a lead brick had been dropped in her stomach. “What?” she breathed at her father’s words. For all the ways Katie acted and cursed like a sailor, she never thought Katie would abandon her to be alone with a drunken idiot like Dad.

“Yeah, she’s  _ reaaaal _ special. Got into the year abroad program, like she’s some big shit, studying Russian so she can go be a Cold War Spy, and I says to her… I said, you think anybody gives a shit about the Russians anymore? And she acted like…”

Ali couldn’t hear him- she pushed past him right as Katie opened her bedroom door, looking guilty.

The two sisters stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, Katie’s expression her admission of wrongdoing, and Ali’s one of devastation, neither one listening to their father’s drunken ramblings.

“You’re leaving me? Here? Alone?” Ali finally asked, stunned.

“I was going to tell you tonight at dinner. I always wanted to go to Europe, you know that, and I got into the program-”

“But, Katie-”

“ _ But, Katie, _ ” Dad mocked her, breaking the moment. “Maybe I should have beat you two when you were little, then you wouldn’t be such spoiled brats-”

“Dad, shut up,” Katie snarled. “You don’t have to talk to her like that. You ruined her birthday-”

“ _ He _ ruined my birthday? What the hell do you think you just did?”

“You’re old enough to understand that you can’t always do whatever you want on your birthday  _ just because _ ,” Dad slurred.

“Dad, shut up!” Katie repeated.

“You actually talk to me like that? Get the hell out of my house-”

“Don’t worry, I’m going!” Katie responded, and slammed the door to her room. “Bastard!” she shouted through the door.

“Aren’t you going to say goodnight to me and give me the respect I deserve for bringing your whiny little ass into this world?” her father slurred, slinking into the kitchen to pour himself another drink.

Ali didn’t respond. He wasn’t going to hear anything she said anyway.


	3. You Should Be in Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can just stick with this until Chapter 9, Kate will resemble the character she is on the show, promise!
> 
> I always wondered if the Becketts were lay-Catholics, so I'm running with that.

It was a few days before anybody talked to anybody else in their apartment. Ali felt miserable, and she called the church’s office to schedule a confession. She couldn’t put her family on the line by telling the school counselor how much her father drank. She had to keep it a secret. She needed to talk to Father Murphy.

Father Murphy met her after school in the confessional. Not a lot of people went to confession, mostly old folks. 

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three weeks since my last confession.”

“Tell me your sins, my child.”

Ali leaned back in the tiny confessional booth and told him everything about the last few weeks, tears falling, thinking about how miserable she was at home, how the girls at school made fun of how emo she was, how things just couldn’t be  _ right _ . “Why did my mother have to die?” Ali sobbed. She knew she had been in this confessional for way too long. “I miss her. I miss everything. Nobody listens to me, Katie and Dad are always yelling at me, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, sometimes.” She sobbed bitterly for what felt like forever.

Father Murphy allowed her to. When her tears finally subsided, he spoke quietly. “My dear, the church has it’s hands tied in a lot of ways in these situations. We no longer have a place to house children who need it and we can’t move you out of there until things get better for your father unless CPS can step in first.” 

“Well,  _ that’s _ a comfort,” Ali mumbled.

“Alison-”

“Father, you’re not supposed to call me by name.”

“You’re the only girl from CYO who comes to confession regularly, it’s kind of hard not to.”

Ali shrugged, knowing it was true.

“Prayer can help, and it also helps ease your mind a bit. Keep in mind, this situation is only a year. Then, you’ll be old enough to move out on your own and leave. I really think you should make plans to cut yourself off from your family and heal. It’s really the best way.”

“How? How am I going to get a job to pay rent and go to college and… how am I going to get through this?”

“My dear, let me see if I can find a therapist that can help you through the church.”

“ _Me?_ _I_ need therapy?” Ali asked, offended.

“Most people in therapy are only in it to figure out how to deal with people that  _ should _ be in it.”

“Well…  _ that _ makes sense.”

“Just hold on. A home this psychologically stressful can be survived. And your pain is legitimate and real, just as much as your father and sister’s. I promise.”

Ali sniffed again, a very unladylike gesture, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. 

“Sometimes, we never get the answer to the question ‘ _ why _ ?’ But there comes a point when we learn to let go of needing it to survive. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now, your penance is to say ten Hail Marys for your mother’s soul. I know she’s praying for you. And your sister and your father, although it may not feel like it. They are in so much pain, even though they’re not treating you very well. And I want you to say Ten Our Fathers for your family. They need it. And they need you. And light a candle for each of them.”

“I don’t have any money for the candles.”

“That doesn’t matter. You need them, the money’s there. Now go, and sin no more, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Alison crossed herself and went out to the chapel to do her penance.

* * *

Ali tried to make amends with Katie before she left for the Ukraine at the end of June. She tried to help Katie with packing, but was pushed out.

Ali finally went down to the Walgreen’s and got a package of electrical converters from North American standard to EU Standard, which cost a good chunk of her paycheck from the bodega. She was trying to get a job as a hostess in a restaurant instead, anyway, her father came through to her bodega to annoy her at times. 

She knocked on the door to Katie’s room.

“Come in!” Katie shouted.

Ali opened the door to see two giant suitcases laid out across the tiny New York apartment bedroom. “Hey,” Katie said, off-handedly.

“I got you these. I hope you can use them,” Ali said, holding out the package of six. Katie accepted them.

“Wow, Als… this is really nice and useful. Thank you. I will use them, I only had two from mom’s trunk.” She got the scissors to cut open the blister pack to put the converters into a pocket in her suitcase. She didn’t shoo Ali out of the room.

Ali watched Katie pack some more things. “Do you want me to take your things down to the laundry? I don’t mind doing them for you.”

“That would be really nice. Thank you.”   


Ali picked up the laundry sack to start a load of laundry in the basement. When she came back up, Katie was in the kitchen, setting up a poster board with reminders on the bills for their father. “Do you actually think Dad’ll follow that?” 

“Well, it’s worth a try. Just remind him, it’s for you, too.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Just remind him-”

“He doesn’t hear anything I say to him-”

“It’s not that hard! And don’t go telling me that you’re so helpless-”

“I’m not saying that, but Dad-”

“There’s always a ‘but’ with you. Quit whining and act like an adult with brain, Ali! Speak up!”

“You are so insensitive!” Ali cried. Katie was one of the few people she could find the voice to yell at. She felt justified in yelling at Katie. Any time she yelled at anybody else, she got shamed for being unladylike and rude. It confused her; where did her rights end and others begin? It was so hard to tell. 

“Me? Insensitive? Did you know I have problems of my own, Ali? I can’t deal with yours, too! I have a life to live, I’ve got to start a career soon, and I wanted to go to Europe finally, why do you want to screw this up for me so badly?”

“You’re selfish, too!” Ali snapped. “Why should I be surprised-”

“I didn’t have a child, Ali. I’m  _ not _ Mom.”

“Damn straight you’re not Mom,” Ali snapped, spinning on her heel to leave the room.

“Don’t walk away from me, you little pain in the ass!” Katie shouted after her, but Ali ignored her. The back of Ali’s collar was yanked backwards suddenly, and she landed on the floor, Katie was standing over her eyes blazing. “I’m fucking trying to help while I’m out of the country!”

“At least I don’t have to use swear words to make a point.”

“ _ You  _ can actually make a point? Do you even speak loud enough for anybody to hear?”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you too.” 

“Have a nice time in Russia with all the communists!” Ali blurted out.

“I will, thank you! Little bitch...”

And that was the last time Ali and her sister spoke before Katie left for a year.


	4. Tooth and Nail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Castle.

Ali attended the workshops for color guard in July. She took the sport quite seriously. Ali intended the workshop seriously, especially now that she was a senior and had a shot at captain. 

Ali was also kind of relieved, being a senior, seeing as there was no one at school, save for the teachers, that remembered Katie. 

Ali was still pissed off at Katie, so much that she had been so angry she hadn’t remembered to eat until she passed out at work the next day. Ali hated when boys at school said,  _ “Ali Beckett… you’re not Katie Beckett’s little sister, are you? Oh God, I remember she was sooo hot on the volleyball team! How is she doing? I heard she started modeling, if she still doing that? Where can I get her pictures?” _ If someone brought Katie up with her, Ali was prepared to cooly tell them she had no sister. She had been abandoned by Katie when she needed her the most. And, Katie had called her a bitch. What kind of sister did that?

Ali had started trying to live without Katie, and tried to get her father’s attention for things like bills. But the mere memory of Katie and how much a selfish bitch she was, was enough to make Ali want to punch something and scream. She considered herself an only child right now, but one night after the workshop when she came home to an email from Katie, like nothing was wrong. She deleted it without reading it and slammed her laptop shut, and ran until she was so exhausted to think.

The first few days of the color guard workshop went well, until Mrs. Newton, one of the AP History Teachers and Sponsor for the guard, pulled Ali aside before the workshop started.

“Alison, I wanted to talk to you about something in private?”

“Sure!” Ali cried, thinking this might be it: she was being named captain of the guard!

“Ali,” Mrs. Newton said quietly, voice just above a whisper, and placed a hand on Ali’s wrist. “This is really embarrassing, but the check your father wrote to cover guard dues… it bounced.”

Ali’s attempt to be humble and surprised at being named captain faded. This did not look like a captain. A guard captain always had her bills paid and was responsible, and came from a quality family. She looked like a piece of white trash right now, as her cheeks burned. She had been performing well under the choreographer and the guard instructors, but this… this did not look good. She felt humiliated tears spring to her eyes.

“Sweetheart, it’s alright,” Mrs. Newton said, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t cry, nobody has to know if we can just take care of this. I’m sure it was just an oversight, honey, don’t get upset. But we are going to have to administer the overdraft fee.”

Alie wiped the tears from her eyes. She knew she didn’t have enough to cover that check in her personal checking account. She had some money from her mother’s estate she was set to inherit when she reached age eighteen, but she couldn’t access it until then without her father or Katie’s signature. And getting her father to write the check had practically taken an act of God. It was like trying to bathe a cat. She wasn’t sure why the check bounced, and she wasn’t sure could get it fixed quickly. This was the pain of being a minor without a reliable parent when she had adult responsibilities. What the hell was Dad doing with his paycheck?

“I’ll get the money to you by the end of the week,” Ali muttered.

* * *

Dad was asleep in the living room, still in his pajamas and bathrobe and unshaven. How had she missed him this morning? There was a glass filled with clear liquid making a water ring on the coffee table, and it smelled like watered down gin. Groaning, she went to the kitchen to toss it and put the glass in the dishwasher. Katie’s posterboards with bill reminders had been taken down, and Ali transferred most of the dates into her personal day planner so she could throw them away. She went to Dad’s bedroom to see if she could find his checkbook and make sense of his bank accounts. If her guard fees check bounced, what was going on with the rest of their finances?

She found her father’s briefcase by the bed. His room was a wreck, but then again, she wasn’t his maid. If Katie could move on with her life and abandon them, why couldn’t she? Then again, she’s wasn’t a selfish, narcissistic monster like her sister.

The briefcase was filled with random, disorganized junk. Ali was expecting it to just contain his laptop and some case files from work, but they weren’t there. She looked a little more closely at the paperwork: it was short-term disability. Her father was on a leave of absence? It said the leave started a month ago. Underneath that was disciplinary paperwork from the other partners at his firm. He was in trouble at work? It said that he had been showing up late to work, missing depositions and court times, and had had excessive absences. This meant he might not be drawing a paycheck at all right now. Ali’s stomach dropped, and she felt sick. Was their rent check going to bounce next? This was a much bigger problem than what was going on in guard. Was she going to find herself out on the streets? Where would she go, what would she do? Did she even have any friends that would take her in any more? Aunt Becca would take advantage of this situation, she had never liked Dad when he married Mom, although they had gotten through it as a family and got along. It had been a big secret whenever they went to visit her and Sophia in Connecticut.

Ali drew herself into a ball and tried to contain the panic rising up her throat.

_ Damn, Katie. Damn that you left me here with this,  _ Ali thought, fighting back her tears. The violation of being abandoned sank down into her gut, and she let the tears go.

The door to the bedroom flew open, and her father stood there, bags under his eyes, looking green and hungover. “Ali? What the hell are you doing in my room, going through my things?” he snapped hoarsely.

“When were you going to tell me you went on FMLA?” Ali asked.

“That’s none of your business!”

“I live with you, it’s my business! My check for guard bounced, did you know that? I can’t cover it myself! Are we broke? Are we going to get evicted, nobody will tell me anything!” she shouted.

“Don’t talk to me like that, young lady!” her father snarled.

“Are we going to be homeless next week because you’re drinking yourself out of job? Huh? What do I have to do to get you to stop?” Ali shouted, getting to her feet.

She didn’t anticipate her father’s hand striking her cheek so hard it knocked her over. It was stunning. He was hitting her for not being perfect enough. 

The shame trickling into her bloodstream ached and embarrassed her more than the humiliation. She couldn’t imagine a worse situation or feeling.  _ I wish I were dead,  _ Ali thought without realizing it. She instantly regretted thinking such a thing. It was as if someone else was whispering it into her ear, not herself.

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again,” her father said in a low growl. “And get out of my sight, you make me sick.”

* * *

Ali made arrangements with Mrs. Newton to pay her fees in portions out of her own account the next day. She opened her email to write to Katie about Dad being on FMLA, but decided against it. All she’d hear out of Katie was,  _ “Grow up, take control of shit, and stop bitching to me _ ” out of her sister’s foul mouth.

Ali’s thoughts swirled into her anxieties and bloated them up in her head. She felt her heart thundering in her chest at the thought of getting kicked out of their apartment. How long could she keep up the illusion that nothing was wrong at school? Her teachers and the school district calling CPS was her worst nightmare.

Of course, she had read Katie’s old copies of  _ Sassy _ Magazine’s  _ It Happened to Me _ . There were girls out there younger than she was that had worse things happen. She had no excuse. Maybe Katie was right and she needed to stop whining. But Katie hadn’t been through that. The anger burned in her stomach that Katie was probably running around, making out with European guys like a slut in Kiev, without a care in the world. She hoped Katie got pregnant accidentally from whoring around and couldn’t tell who the father was, that would be a case of Schadenfreude for Ali. Or maybe a curable STD, like the clap. She couldn’t believe she was going to take joy in her sister’s misfortunes, but she did. She wanted karma to hit Katie hard for abandoning her like this. She’d have never done that to Katie to suit her own desires. Katie’s selfishness was astounding and infuriated Ali just that much more.

Of course, that was all the more reason to keep her troubles quiet. Nobody could find out that her father had just knocked her to the ground and bounced a check. She’d work until she had it all taken care of. She was going to overcome all this stress, if she could just figure out how to handle it by herself. All anybody would hear out of her was complaining. 

She had scheduled a quiet time with her Bible and to pray tonight. She didn’t feel very peaceful. And she didn’t think God was troubled with her at all, right now. If Mom could actually pray for her in heaven, why weren’t things changing down here? Why hadn’t Mom held on after the attack, just long enough for the paramedics to arrive so she could survive? Dad wouldn’t have fallen into the bottle and Katie wouldn’t be such a hostile, angry, bitter bitch these days.

Her mind went in circles, and she couldn’t sleep. She had work after the workshop tomorrow, and desperately needed sleep to be at 100%. She berated herself for not being able to force her body to sleep.

She was exhausted in the mornings and afternoons. Guard training got tougher with the lack of sleep. Once, Ali had felt her mind refresh and relax when she spun her sabre and flags and danced with them. She lost herself and her worries, once. Not any longer. She was missing her marks, getting off-beat at times, and dropping entirely too much. It got so bad that the guard instructor made her carry the “drop bag”, a giant pillow case with a drawstring, stuffed with rags that she had to keep on her right arm while doing tosses. This was definitely not guard captain material. Guard captains didn’t drop like freshmen. If she wasn’t out of the running before, she definitely was now. She just wanted to get through the year until she turned eighteen, finally.

The last day of the workshop, Ali was a bit mentally distracted when she was doing a quint toss with her sabre. There was a late notice from the electric company, much to her chagrin. She taped it to the open bottle of gin her father was trying to hide under the kitchen sink with a note to him in Sharpie on the envelope. He wouldn’t miss that for sure. The sabre had been mis-timed in the toss, and it suddenly struck Ali in her face, and then clanged to the gym floor.

She cried out, and her mouth stung, especially her teeth. She pressed a hand to her mouth, and it drew back blood. Something was in her mouth that tasted bitter, like beets and rust and was hard against her tongue, like a piece of hard candy. She felt light-headed when she spat into her hand to discover a white chunk of tooth.

“Beckett!” her instructor shouted. “Keep going-”

“She’s bleeding!” one of the other members of the guard cried out.

“My tooth!” Ali whimpered, and the instructor ran over to her. Ali turned the bit of tooth over in her hand. This was her worst nightmare; getting zits was one thing, but knocking a tooth out was permanent. She felt like she was going to pass out. How did she ever smile again? There was no way she’d get her teeth fixed, not with her father being so apathetic. Her looks were permanently marred, now. She had relied on them for work and for her personal confidence. Maybe she wasn’t as striking and beautiful and Katie, but she wasn’t ugly. Until now. A sob escaped her throat. Now, she had to be hideous with a missing tooth. She ran her tongue over her teeth, and felt the broken tooth. Even her nose shot streaks of pain out to the touch.

“Let’s go get some ice, Ali,” her instructor said in a gentle voice that she was not used to.

As Ali iced down her mouth, she was seated in the bleachers, and Mrs. Newton climbed up to sit down beside her. “We called your father’s office, and they said he was out. Do you have another number for him? A cell phone number?”

Ali’s stomach lurched. “He’s home today,” she carefully said, despite the pain in her mouth. “But-”

“No, you’re injured. We need to call him. If he can’t come and get you, what about your sister?”

“She’s not home,” Ali blurted out.

“Someone has to come get you. We can’t release you like this.”

Ali felt sick and tears gathering. How had she been dragged into this living hell without confessing everything? “Try my home number,” she mumbled.

Mrs. Newton got up and dialed her father’s number again on her cell phone, and Ali watched as the guard took a break, and the different girls were standing together, whispering, looking at her. Ali’s cheeks burned. 

_ Things aren’t going to get better, _ Ali thought to herself. She had never felt so alone or helpless or useless in her whole life. She wanted the earth swallow her.

Mrs. Newton climbed the bleachers again. “Ali, is everything alright at home?” she asked, in that cloying, sympathetic voice. 

Ali was reaching new lows in humiliation she didn’t think were possible these days. She hated everybody and everything. Her life was in shambles, being ruined, nothing seemed stable anymore. Ali nodded, despite her tears. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

Mrs. Newton said she’d try a few more people and left her on the bleachers.

The guard was practicing again. Ali got up, her mouth and nose bloody, and grabbed her backpack, leaving her practice sabre and flag behind. She escaped the gym of humiliation, where she had to lie all the time, pressing brown paper towels to her nose, and ran away from the workshop. There was no way to return. Ever.

She was done with dance and guard forever.


	5. Guilt Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Castle.

Ali arrived home after taking the dirty subway. She heard the TV on Fox News in the master bedroom, and assumed her father was in there. She went straight to the bathroom and took a shower, eyes avoiding the mirror. She couldn’t look at her hideous image right now with broken teeth. Her face stung and burned under the hot spray.

As she got out, there was a knock on the door.

“Alison?” her father called. His voice sounded a little hoarse, but at least he wasn’t slurring.

“Dad?”   
“What’s this message on my voicemail that you got hurt at guard camp today?”

She wrapped the towel around her hair and put on her bathrobe before opening the door to show him the damage. “I hit myself in the face,” she said gingerly, carefully showing him her broken tooth, before crying.

“Oh my God!” her father cried, looking horrified. “Honey, we’ve got to get you to the hospital! I just got a message from your guard instructor that you got hurt-”

“You didn’t answer the phone, Dad!” Alison sobbed. “I’ve been turned into a monster and my face is destroyed, and you wouldn’t answer the phone! I ran away from there, because nobody cared enough to come get me!”

“Alison, let’s got to the hospital and get your treated, honey-”

Alison was enraged. “Don’t touch me! Where were you-”

“Don’t talk to me like that, I’m your father-”

“We don’t have the money to get my teeth fixed!” Alison shouted. “I look like a monster because you drink too much to even go to work!”

“Why do you think we’re broke? I have savings for these things-”

“Then why did my check to the school bounce when the workshop started?” Ali snapped.

Her father’s face blanked. “It… it bounced? When did I write a check-”

“I guess you did it while blacked out,” she snapped. “And I’ve been trying to cover it myself!”

Her father seemed stunned.

“Do you know how embarrassing it is that we can’t get our bills paid on time while you’re a partner in a law firms? Why do you think Katie ran away to the Ukraine? You embarrass her!”

“Alison,” her father said sharply. “Get dressed, we’re going to the hospital right now so you can go back to the workshop-”

“No! I’m not going back! I quit because I’ve made fool of myself trying to cover for you. Did I do something to make you hate this much-”

“I don’t hate you, sweetheart-”

“Then why don’t you stop drinking? Why don’t you stop doing things to embarrass me and hurt me? Why don’t you stop calling me names-”

“I don’t call you names-”

“You call me a selfish little shit on my birthday! You called me a little bitch-”

“Because you and Katie didn’t include me-”

“Because every time she asked, you were too trashed to make plans!”

In the long silence as Ali dressed herself in her bedroom, she thought he was actually considering apologizing to her. She thought he was actually considering stopping with the bottle. Instead, she found him in the kitchen, pouring a shot of straight gin, his face red and mouth in a thin line. “My drinking is none of your business, young lady,” he said darkly, tossing back the shot. “Neither are my finances. Go get your shoes on, we’re going.”

* * *

Ali didn’t admit that there were any problems at home in Triage. Who’d have believed her anyway?

The ER doctors did a X-ray of her face and found that she had broken her nose, too. She was referred to a cosmetic dentist to get treated, and they taped a pad over her nose after setting the broken cartilage. When she burst into tears in the examining room, her father took over from the corner. “We lost her mother in a random gang violence accident a few years ago. It’s been tough on us,” he said in the most deep and compassionate voice possible. Ali wanted to puke.

“I didn’t know you were a widower, Mr. Beckett. I’m going to refer Alison to a therapist, too. You need to take her to her pediatrician for some antidepressants, she seems to need them. I’ll write a script for them temporarily.”

I _ need a therapist? _ Ali thought, surprised. I’m  _ the one that needs drugs?  _ I’m _ not the one that drinks to black out status on a regular basis. I’d be fine if Dad didn’t drink and was a responsible adult, playing Mom’s death to gain sympathy for himself. _

They gave her some strong pain medications to ease the pain in her teeth, and recommended that she eat soups and pureed food until tomorrow at the cosmetic dentist’s appointment.

That evening, her father didn’t drink that heavily, but he tried to talk her into calling Mrs. Newton to apologize and rejoin the guard because, “Becketts aren’t losers. Only quitters really lose, Alison, and they never win.”

Ali didn’t respond, except with eye rolls. She had no intention of rejoining guard. She was humiliated. Most of the girls in winter guard gossiped about her anyway, it wasn’t fun anymore. She’d never succeed.

The next morning, she went to the cosmetic dentist for a consultation, and he promised he could get a temporary veneer onto her broken tooth while they waited for the permanent one from the lab to be created. She honestly believed that her father was sober, until he went up to the check-out counter to pay for the consultation, and she smelled the sting of alcohol on him. He was sneaking sips of something while she was in there.

When they got home, Ali took a nap, only to wake up to her father knocking on her locked bedroom door. He held out the cordless landline phone. “Phone’s for you.”

“I’ll talk to them later,” Ali replied, needing a new dose of Tylenol.

“It’s Katie.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” Ali snorted, sitting up to take the phone. 

“ _ Ali _ ?” Katie’s voice was tinny on the other end.

Ali hit the hand-up button without a word. “Here ya go.” She handed the phone back to her father.

“She called long-distance after I emailed her about the accident!” her father cried. 

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

“You could at least tell her that.”

“She was so mean to me before she left, she doesn’t deserve it,” Ali mumbled.

“She’s your sister, she’s concerned about you!”

“She’s only calling to make herself look like she cares,” Ali replied. “Didn’t you hear our fight before she left for Russia?”

“She’s in the Ukraine, that’s a different country since 1990 when the Soviet Union fell.”

“She could be on Mars for all I care.”

Her father sighed. “You’re upset. You’re tired, and you’re confused. I’ll let you rest so you can get into a better mood and be pleasant with Katie next time she calls.”

_ Be pleasant, _ Ali thought bitterly.  _ All they want is a guilt trip on me. _

* * *

The day after she got her temporary veneers, she was woken up early by her father. “Get dressed, you’re going back to guard camp. I’m going to pack your lunch.”

“I’m not going.”

“You can’t quit like that, Alison-”

“Yes, I can. I can, since I paid for it, and that means I can make the choices, not you. Wasted money. If I had access to Mom’s estate, I’d move the hell out of his apartment to get away from you.”

“No need to be so rude, young lady.”

“And there’s no real reason for you to drink.”

“I have been dry for several days now, I’ll have you know-”

“You hide your bottles all the time,” Ali sneered. “You expect me to believe that you don’t drink? You’re some kind of tough martyr who broke the habit by sheer force of will? Don’t make me puke. You disgust me.”

The door to her bedroom slammed shut. “ _ Ungrateful brat _ …”


	6. Little Lucia

Ali’s summer days lengthened into a long length of worry. She was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. Dad went back into his old ways of drinking again, and this time, didn’t even bother trying to hide the bottles. Nobody from winter guard or even Mrs. Newton called to check on her.

Ali was alone. Her depression deepened. Her father didn’t think she was worth taking to the therapist, but she tried the antidepressants, ashamed of herself. She couldn’t believe she was using a crutch like this. If she could have kept it a secret, she would have. Why was everybody telling her _ she _ was the problem that needed help when the worst thing she did was try to be perfect while everyone around her was screwing up and being cruel? Why did she have to change when all she did was take care of others?

Her father went to Vermont without notice one weekend, leaving her note that said, “ _ If you’re so independent have fun taking care of the first week of school. _ ”

She crumpled it up into a ball and threw it at the wastebasket, missing.

She could run this apartment on her own for a week. She had taken care of herself most of the summer anyway.

While taking her father’s empty bottles down to the recycling bin in the alley beside their building, she thought she heard a squeaking sound. It didn’t sound like a rat, more like a very squeaky, high-pitched cat. She wondered if there was a feral cat out here. She looked around the corner of the recycle dumpster to see a tiny fluffy thing covered in mud and dirt, that was mewling.

It was a newborn kitten!

Ali’s heart immediately went out to it. She picked it up and it was shivering and dirty, and looked for the mother cat and the rest of the litter. It’s eyes weren’t even open.  It was probably too little to be taken away from it’s mother cat, but she never found the litter it came from. She took it upstairs and toweled it off. How did she feed it? She leafed through the yellow pages to find a vet to call, although she wasn’t sure she could afford to pay for a full vet exam. She called and made an appointment to see if she could get the kitten taken care of, holding it close to her body for warmth. A pet shop in the neighborhood offered an almost immediate appointment. Alison took the kitten a few blocks down to bring it in.

“This little kitten is probably a girl cat, from what I can tell,” the lady behind the counter said. 

“She was really cold when I found her.”

“Can you bottle feed her every few hours once you’ve warmed her up?”

“I can do that. What do I feed her?”

“Some formula we’re going to provide for you. Are you sure the mother’s missing? Sometimes mother cats can do out hunting for hours at at time.”

Ali nodded. “The kitty was all alone and dirty. I never found the rest of it’s litter.”

“You’ll have to stimulate the genitals to get the kitten to urinate or defecate, and bottle feed it every three hours, even in the middle of the night. Can you do that? You can surrender the kitten to us if you can’t”

“I can,” Ali said. “It’s summertime.”

“Good. Let’s get some formula for the kitten and you can get her home.”

Ali took the kitten home. It was a black kitten, and really thin, not fat like she thought kitten should be. Her mother had had an old crusty black-and-white cat named Poppy that was cranky when Ali was little. But other cats were sweet and affectionate. Poppy had died when Ali was eight, though. The kitten made her wonder if Mom was looking down on her, giving her something to love her, and fill the void. 

Ali warmed the kitten up and made a bottle of formula for it. The kitten took the milk, and it made Ali smile. Baby kitten needed a name.

“Lucia,” Ali said, cupping the tiny kitten in her hand.

The next three days, Ali fed the kitten on a timer, every three hours. The kitten seemed to be doing okay, but it wasn’t pooping, yet, but she was gaining weight. Lucia was quickly become an object of Ali’s affection. She felt like all the love she had lost was going to be found in this kitten. Maybe this was Mom reaching out to her, to give her something to love and make her happy again. She doted on it, sang to it, and cuddled it. She hoped Lucia’s eyes would open soon.

On the fourth day, the phone rang, and Ali went to answer it. The caller ID said, ‘unavailable.’ Fearing it was a telemarketer or a bill collector, Ali decided to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Ali?”

“Katie?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Ali’s rage started to grow and return. Katie was calling her after all the time and got her to answer?

“Why are you ignoring me so hard? I just went away for school, not for life-”

“Do you know what your leaving did to me? I had to quit winter guard-”

“No, you didn’t, you just got embarrassed, don’t blame this on me-”

Ali hung up the phone. She didn’t want to talk to Katie at all if the conversation was going to go this way.

* * *

The alarm went off for the three a.m. feeding and Ali lifted her head. She had made a little warm nest for Lucia with her father’s travel alarm clock that ticked and the heating pad on the lowest setting under her desk. She ran to the kitchen to measure out some formula for the kitten, and came back to see if she could wake Lucia up.

Her hand touched something wet and sticky and little warm.

Had Lucia finally pooped?

She flipped on the lamp with her clean hand and discovered Lucia lying in a puddle of blood and diarrhea. She gasped, and touched Lucia, but the kitten didn’t move. “Lucia?” she begged. Usually the kitten’s head moved at sound. She tried to feel the kitten’s heartbeat, but it wasn’t there. The kitten was warm from the heating pad, but it was dead.

Ali felt like she had been slapped.

* * *

Ali tearfully cleaned up little Lucia and put her in a shoebox for a coffin, taking it to Central Park.

She sneaked into a wooded area with a spade, and dug a small hole to fit the shoe box in, saying good-bye to her baby kitten. Every bad thing she could think about happening, had happened.

She sat on the tree roots, leaning against the trunk, and sobbed once the little kitten was buried. She felt like she had lost everything. Nothing good could happen ever again.

She glanced up to see someone familiar; one of the cliques from Stuveysant Winter Guard, walking through. She had forgotten this was the day that they were scheduled to do a performance in Central Park They were watching her, staring at her, all dressed in their matching leotards and dance shorts, carrying their equipment.

She must have looked like such a freak.

She picked up her shovel and ran away.

The school year was starting soon. She had tried to ignore it would happen. At this point, nobody called her and nobody came by to check on her. She was alone and abandoned. And now, even her kitten was dead.

God was so cruel. How could she trust Him? He had forgotten about her. Maybe He was just having a good laugh at her. It felt like that, anyways.

She called the landline to her dad’s cabin in Vermont to tell him that school was starting Monday, if he wanted to come back from fishing. The phone picked up. There was nothing but labored breathing on the other end for a moment.

“Dad?” she asked.

Nothing.   
“Dad, are you there? Hello?”

Something unintelligible was slurred out on the other end, that hardly sounded like him.

He hadn’t gone to the cabin to recover. He had gone to drink himself into an oblivion.

She hung up.  _ Of course he did that, _ she thought.  _ Of course he’s drinking to forget his loser daughter who can’t do shit right and the other one that abandoned him. _


	7. Logical Solutions

On the first day of her senior year, Alison stayed home. Her depression was getting worse, and she didn’t feel like things would ever get better. 

The voice in her head suggesting things would never get better and nobody cared about her kept on popping up. She had gone from chastising it, saying she’d never do that, to entertaining the thought. How would she do it? How would she take her own life? She was too chicken to slice her wrists open. She wasn’t a cutter. The idea of shotgun and blowing her brains out seemed good, but her father was a responsible gun owner and had locked up his guns in a gunsafe she couldn’t get into that was located in the back of his closet. He didn’t even have a gun in his nightstand, but there were a few fishing magazines and a small bottle of vodka.

Getting enough hard liquor to poison herself with alcohol was too hard to do. Her father had drunk all the alcohol in their house before he left, and she didn’t have a fake ID, and wasn’t sure where to get one that was quality.

She thought about jumping out the window from their high rise, and falling to her death. All she needed was the courage to leap out the window, despite being terrified of heights. She opened the big window in the living room, but actually doing it gave her panic attacks.

She had to come up with a better way to kill herself. Who knew that it took so much courage?

She considered a sleeping pill overdose. That would be painless, she’d just have to take a lot of pills. There was nothing more than Tylenol and some blood pressure pills in the house. She wasn’t sure she’d die from Tylenol overdose, but would probably damage her liver. She ran down to the drug store only to find that the sleeping pills weren’t sold in large quantities, not that she’d consider buying them, making herself suspicious. She instead bought a package of razors to shave her legs, since she had just run out.

_ I’m just being silly,  _ Ali thought.  _ I’d never have the guts to do this to myself. Suicide is a stupid idea. _

She watched the city lights in the darkness, the red brake lights of the taxis moving, and she went though old family photo albums that were now covered in dust.

She missed her mother. She couldn’t remember her mother’s face, she realized, until she looked at the pictures: her father without the bags under his eyes from all his drinking, Katie before she got that nasty cynical darkness in her eyes and mean smile, and Ali before she grew up to find out how hard adulthood could be.  _ Why did anybody ever want to grow up? _ she thought.  _ So much loss and hurt. It’s not worth it. _

She opened the big window to breathe in the cool air and let it blow on her face. Unless you were pretty and magnetic, people just didn’t care. Alison wasn’t that pretty. Not like Katie was striking and hot and all the guys loved her. She was in Katie’s shadow. And she’d never be as smart as Katie, her mother or father. She just barely made a 3.0 GPA, and Katie’s weighted GPA was over a 4 in high school. Ali hated herself, how much she wasn’t perfect. Boys didn’t like her, and she was certain that they never would. Her crushes were unattainable. And she didn’t have the courage to end it all and put everyone else out of her misery. She caused so much misery. She was selfish, like Katie said, to want to stop her sister from achieving goals and living her life to take care of mousy, voiceless little Alison. Ali knew she’d have to muddle through a miserable existence until she was brave enough to stop it all and do everyone a favor. She’d always have to leech off other people. Why? Why was her life even given to her?

As she slept that night, she dreamed of her mother coming to her through the window, like the Virgin Mary, arms outstretched, singing the  _ Ave Maria _ like an angel, bright light emanating from her pores, making her glow.

Her mother smiled down at her, lovingly. Alison felt some kind warmth radiating into her limbs, and it was peaceful. The thoughts of how much of a burden she was faded, and she felt like she was floating. 

Smiling, her mother slid the blue hood off her head and then reached down to stroke Ali’s hair. Ali felt the worries lifting off her. And then her mother held something out in her other hand: a straight razor. She placed the razor in Ali’s hand.

And then, Ali woke up.

The message was clear; it would all be over and she’d be with her mother. And it would just take slitting her wrists.

* * *

Ali stood in her bathroom and tried to carefully dismantle the shaving razor she had bought a few days ago, trying to get the flimsy razors out of the pink plastic casting without cutting her finger tips. She did a few times, and blood dripped on to the bathroom counter.

The doorbuzzer sounded: somebody was here. Was it a sign? A supernatural one, like Mom coming to her in her dream? Was she supposed to wait?

The phone rang a moment later. Alison ran to the master bedroom to get the phone. “Hello?” she asked.

“Alison Beckett? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“It’s Father Murphy from church. I’ve been a bit worried about you since you haven’t been coming to church or confession, recently. And I heard your father and sister are out of town, too. Are you home all alone? Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine, Father,” she said, surprised at how upbeat and normal she sounded.

“Do you want to go out to breakfast? I’ll pay.”

“No, Father, that’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got some things to do today, I can’t.”

“Didn’t the school year already start? Shouldn’t you be in school right now?”

She blinked. This priest was getting too nosey. “I’m fine, like I said. Everything will alright in a little while. Thank you for calling to check on me-”

“Alison, if something’s wrong, don’t do anything drastic-”

“Don’t worry about me. I have to go, now, Father. Good-bye.”

She realized that she needed to have her hair straightened and be wearing her mother’s pearls, and say a last rosary before she went. She found her mother’s old Sunday Missal and read the prayers before saying a rosary. Making herself look pretty so she could be found, she put on a pretty dress that probably looked too old for her (and made her look like a slut, according to her father), and did her make-up, and put on a pretty pair of high heels.  _ This will be peaceful,  _ she thought. She considered writing a note to her father and sister to tell them this was the best option, it would stop all the pain, and they could go on with their lives without worry about her. She sat down at her computer and wrote the most eloquent, positive, up-beating sounding note that she could, telling them which dress to bury her in and that she wanted Dear Father Murphy to preside over her funeral, and not to cremate her and open her funeral up to the public at all. But the printer didn’t work, much to her aggravation. She figured it would be a while before Katie had a chance to check her email in Kiev, which was eight hours ahead. Katie had left her class schedule out for them before she left, and today, she was in class for another hour. Dad had no internet at the cabin, so that was safe. They wouldn’t get the note until Ali was gone. She signed off on the four page letter with:

_ Things will be best when I go to be with Mom. Take care. _

_ Love you both, _

_ Alison _

She hit the send and went to the bathroom to slice her wrist.  _ Up and down, not across the tracks,  _ she thought. She had seen  _ the Craft  _ on one of the movie channels with Katie a few years ago. Apparently only newbies who didn’t know anything about killing themselves tried to slice across the tendons on the wrist, which didn’t guarantee a uniform depth in the blue-green veins under her skin that she wanted to cut. 

She tried to dig the razor edge into her skin, but it hurt. “Ow!” she shrieked. She didn’t want to wimp out, obviously. She had already sent the note to Dad and Katie, saying good-bye, they’d kill her if she scared them like that, not going through with it. Ali took ten Tylenol some four Benadryls for good measure to help her sleep with less pain. She took a deep breath and girded herself for the pain, digging the razor in, dots of blood forming quickly and joining into a thick line of red. She picked up the hand towel to blot it so it didn’t drip onto her dress. There was no way she’d do it to her right wrist, since she was right-handed.

Good enough. She was bleeding really quickly, and she only had a short period of time to lay her body out in a pretty pose for when Katie would inevitably call the police from overseas and they’d come to find her. Hopefully, it would be too late. 

After turning on her mother’s tape of the Carpenter’s Greatest Hits, she laid down on her freshly-made bed, draping her skirt artistically, and she crossed her ankles. She wrapped her wrist up in the hand towel and made sure her hair was spread out like Sleeping Beauty. The Benadryl start to take effect. She sighed contentedly, excited that her mother and the Virgin Mary would be coming for her soon.

* * *

Ali woke up in a hospital room. She recognized it quickly, being reminded of Grandpa’s last days in hospice.

It hadn’t worked.

She looked down at her wrist and it was bandaged and burned a little bit. But her wrists had been tied down with long towels and they were attached to the hospital bed rails. There were towels over the mirrors. What the hell?

This was not fair. Her beautiful death had be ruined! She rooted around, looking for the nurse’s button and pressed it.

“ _ Can I help you? _ ”

“I’d like to know why I’m here.”

“We’ll have someone come in in a moment.”

Ali waited and a nurse came in, giving her a wide berth, not saying a thing. Why was everything so quiet?

“Can you tell me while I’m here?” Alison asked. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” the nurse said overly-gently.

“I know I’m in the hospital, which one?” Ali snapped. “Why are my hands tied down?”

“We don’t want you getting up from the bed, unassisted. Call us for that.”

“Why are my hands tied down?” Ali repeated.

“We don’t want you misusing them. You were seizing when the police found you-”

“What were they doing in my apartment?” Ali asked, feeling indignant.

“They were called in by some concerned people. I can’t tell you much more than that.”

“What part of the hospital am I in?”

The nurse checked her IV drip, but didn’t respond, much to Ali’s frustration. 

She laid in the bed, no TV, no books, no music, no internet and computer.

Who had called the cops? She hadn’t been doing anything to call them, like playing the music too loud or flooding the apartment. Why hadn’t it worked?

She was bored to tears and nobody would tell her anything. How had her plan been foiled? Why wasn’t she up in heaven with her mother right now?

The loneliness was excruciating. A psychologist came into interview her, and she was eager to talk to him and to ask questions.

“I think we need to talk about the reasons you decided to hurt yourself?”

He was so calm and cool, he wasn’t demanding to know why Ali had taken this kind of action, offended, like she had expected.

Ali had not expected that. She knew her father would not be happy with her for making him look bad. He had to explain why his daughter tried to commit suicide, when all she was trying to do was a favor for him. She tried to explain this to the psychiatrist.

“Alison, let me explain this to you: it doesn’t take courage to commit suicide and you weren’t doing anybody a favor by getting rid of yourself. Do you understand that suicide is not getting rid of the pain, it’s making sure everybody else has to deal with it instead?”

“But, I’m a problem,” Ali said. “I couldn’t take care of myself, and I was a burden. Why else would my father have left me all alone without any word on when he’d be back, just so he could drink?”

“I get the feeling your family was not prepared for the loss of your mother. And they’re all in pain so deep that they can’t be bothered to see anyone else’s, namely yours.”

“But, if I were a normal person, I’d take care of this on my own.”

“You’re a minor. You’re still a child, and you lost your mother at an incredible vulnerable time if your life. You’ve lost a lot of development skills that a lot of girls your age get with their mothers. Just that this went unrecognized for so long tells me a lot about how your father and sister are handling it.”

“They’re not bad people,” she said softly. “They’re just tired of trying to take care of me.”

“That’s not an excuse, Alison.”

“It’s Ali, actually, not Alison.”

“I’ll call you Ali, if you’d prefer.”

“I do. Thank you.”


	8. Introspection

Dad was not brought in to see Ali, although she was told he had come by, wanting to see her, the hospital staff was not allowing him in. She was also told that her sister was on her way back to the States.

“I didn’t want that!” Ali cried. “That’s not why I did what I did! She was supposed to stay in the Ukraine and do her senior year there.”

“You think she doesn’t care about you?” the psychiatrist asked. 

“No, she doesn’t,” Ali responded indignantly, thinking of how they both told each other that they hated the other before she left. Ali knew that she didn’t hate Katie, but she had been so needy and dependent on her sister, it was no wonder her sister believed that. She had been a brat, trying to hold her back.

On the evening on the third day, Katie was escorted into the ICU at Bellvue’s. She looked exhausted, her skin dried out, and circles were under her eyes. “Oh, Ali, what the hell were you thinking?”

* * *

Katie was furious with Ali for the suicide attempt. She didn’t hide it, either.

“If you had talked to me, told me how angry you were at me instead of hanging up on me and ignoring my emails, maybe we could have avoided this!”

“Why are you being escorted into my room but Dad isn’t?” Ali grumbled.

“Because Dad’s been arrested for child neglect and endangerment. Did you even realize that this would happen to him? That the police would come down on him because you did something like this? Why did you ever let him go to Vermont and leave you?”

“It was kind of hard when he abandoned me to lock himself up with an endless supply of booze!”

Katie sat down on the chair beside Ali’s bed, and cradled her head in her hands, running her fingers through greasy hair. She could see Katie was so tired. She wondered if she had flown back and hadn’t slept on the flight home. “I didn’t mean to make you fly home.”

“What in the fucking hell did you think I’d do?” Katie snapped.

“Do you have to swear so much!?”

“I don’t know how else to describe how I feel, knowing my little sister tried to kill herself because I ran out on her, so excuse me!”

She hadn’t expected Katie to admit to being guilty. The righteous satisfaction she had expected wasn’t there, she just felt worse.

“Do you think we left each other on easy terms earlier this summer? I have never felt so guilty in my whole life that I left for Europe with my last spoken words to your face that I hate you. And you decided to kill yourself because you think that’s actually true. I love you. So much. And I keep getting caught up in how unhappy and sad I am that Mom died, I didn’t even see how much danger you were in. I told myself you were tough enough to get over all this ‘nobody listens to me’ shit, but you’re not.”

Ali’s heart almost stopped at Katie’s admission.

“I failed you. I’m the first born, I’m supposed to be the one that watches out for you. I can only imagine how disappointed Mom is in me right now.”

Ali thought of the dream she had had with her mother coming to her like the Virgin Mary, handing her the straight razor. Didn’t Mom  _ want  _ this? Didn’t Mom  _ want  _ her to come home to her because she missed her? Why else would Mom have handed her a straight razor to encourage her to slit her wrist? Ali was afraid to tell Katie this, though, Katie was such a cynic and despised religion so heavily these days.

“Do you think I don’t feel guilty? So please, let me edit my language, it really helps me express myself,” she threw her hands up in the air, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “I haven’t slept since I got your email. Why did you email me if you didn’t want me calling the cops? I think you didn’t want to kill yourself, you were just trying to tell me what a shitty sister I am.”

“You’re not bad sister, Katie.”

“Yeah, I am,” Katie said, tears in her voice. She finally lifted her head. “I don’t think Mom ever envisioned being taken from us, but she made me the stronger one so I’d look out for you just in case. But I didn’t. And this happened because I wasn’t there to stop it.”

She realized Katie was trying to say she was sorry without actually saying it. 

Alison’s whole world view that things would be happier and better off without her was crumbling. It scared her that she actually mattered.

* * *

They finally released Ali into Katie’s custody temporarily, and their father was holed up in a hotel a few blocks away, not allowed to see Ali. There was a lot of talk about her being admitted to the TPS, a Teen Private Screening program in Bellvue on the top floor, an inpatient program, which terrified her. Ali didn’t know that she’d ever be able to go back to school again if this got out. The school year was almost two weeks along already, and Ali hadn’t attended a single day. Katie brought her her books and assignments, which were a mountain high already, in the hospital. As much as she hated school sometimes, schoolwork was a welcome distraction from the monotony in the ICU until she left.

Katie had been home, Ali knew it when she arrived. Her bedspread had been washed, and the sheets folded and waiting at the end of the bed. When Ali went to make her bed, she found an incredibly tiny dot of brown blood on the mattress pad Katie had missed when stripping it.

Katie tried to be the ultimate mother on paper: she cooked, cleaned, and did laundry. But whenever the subjects came up about their mother, why Ali attempted suicide, their father’s drinking, Katie lost her temper and left. She managed to get into classes back at NYU as well, and started looking for an apartment. And worst of all, every night after dinner, Katie got a phone call from a guy, and she left the apartment. She’d leave, telling Ali the neighbor was going to check in on her around ten, call her on her cell phone if she needed her, and to work on catching up on her homework.

This left Ali’s mind to wonder what the hell was Katie doing with these guys every night? Hadn’t her almost-suicide made Katie think about her destructive addiction to sex at all? Of course,  _ Sex and the City  _ made bedhopping seem completely normal these days, when Ali knew it was dangerous. Katie would slink back in around eleven or twelve, trying not to make any noise, and take a shower. Worse yet, she was covered in bruises under her clothes that Ali caught glimpses of here and there.

She hadn’t anticipated that Dad would get slapped with legal troubles and child abuse accusations from her actions. They had seemed so logical at the time. It seemed like a happy solution, oddly. And Ali had been raised with a devout Catholic mother and father who had raised her to believe that suicide was the murder of one’s own self, a sin against God, just the same as taking someone else’s life. Why had this value slipped from her mind?

“It’s failure to thrive,” her new therapist said to her. “That’s why you started to believe those things, that it was okay for you to kill yourself.”

“I didn’t realize that attempting suicide would ruin Dad’s life, too,” Ali admitted.

“I think, from what it sounds like, this was a wake-up call for him. And for Katie. It seems you shouldered most of the emotional weight of the family dysfunction, while your father and sister had outlets to help them. Your sister most of all: she ran away, she’d yell at you, she’d yell at your father, I’m sure she’s doing some other destructive things that you aren’t aware of and don’t know about. And your father’s just abusing a substance pretty heavily. He’s found a lot of comfort in alcohol.”

She considered how secretive Katie was with her boyfriends; she never brought her boyfriends home, as if she were ashamed of her family. Ali wasn’t even sure the name of the man she was currently dating, if she was dating at all since coming home unexpectedly. It was hard to untangle the family for Ali, too. Ali had no idea who she was, the things she liked and really prefered, the way she wanted her life to be. Had she ever? But she knew she liked dance and winter guard, but those things had been given up-- well,  _ stripped _ from her. So much of her own life had morphed into covering up for her father. She had only tried to keep her family together to create her own stability. But there was nothing left to stand on.

“I know you may not feel like it right now, but your suicide attempt may be the event your family needed to recognize how dysfunctional they’ve become,” her therapist said.

“I feel like failure, though. How can anything good come out of this?” Ali muttered. 

“I think you’re the perfect child. You really believe that if you’re perfect, you’ll inspire everyone else to shape out of being proud of you. But let me explain something important: there is no such thing as perfect. You keep failing because perfect doesn’t really exist and you beat yourself up. But perfectionism will try to convince that if you’re perfect, you won’t get hurt. But the truth behind the lie is that perfect people  _ do _ get hurt, Ali. You keep talking about really blurry boundaries in your family too, you can’t quite please everyone and I know it bothers you.”

“I’m the one stuck in therapy right now. God, I wish I could get Dad and Katie in.”

“I hope this comes as a comfort to you: the only people who voluntarily enter therapy are only trying to figure out how to deal with the real ones who need it but won’t go.”

Ali struggled with that her father was so far away, but so close by right now. Katie relayed messages from him to her, and some of them sounded like he wanted to see her, badly. Katie told her that evening at dinner, “Dad went into rehab today. A bed opened up for him.”

“He did?” Ali asked, stunned, scratching the delicate, irritated skin on her wrist where the stitches were. She felt…  _ proud _ of him. For the first time in a long time. “Is he okay?”

“Physically speaking, he’s _ okay _ . You can’t contact him right now.”

She wasn’t sure if Katie would blow up if she asked her relay a message for her, so she kept her mouth shut. She buried herself in her mountain of homework that seemed like she’d never make a dent in it. It seemed that if she wasn’t going to psychiatrists and therapists and doctors, she was napping or doing homework. She hadn’t told anybody about Lucia, but the can of newborn kitten formula still sat in the fridge, souring. Katie never asked about it.

* * *

“There’s so many things I want to tell Katie, but I know she’d mock me and make fun of me if I did,” Ali admitted to her therapist the next day.

“That lashing out is a defense mechanism for her. She doesn’t like feeling vulnerable, to open herself up terrifies her, at least I think. I’m not her therapist, I couldn’t say. I think she does this to keep from letting other people hurt her.”

“If she has such a tough time being vulnerable, why does she sleep around so much?”

“You think she does?”

“Well… obviously.”

“Has she admitted to you that she does these things?”

“Well… not really. But it’s obvious when she goes out after dinner to be with her boyfriends, that’s the only reason.”

“Have you asked her what she’s doing?”

“She’ll just tell me it’s none of my business and to eff off or something. She’d lie to me anyway.”

“She had a history of lying to you?”

“Well, she has a history of not telling us stuff and making Dad angry when he finds out.”

“Maybe she just wants some privacy.”

“She’s got her own room!”

“That doesn’t mean privacy. Sometimes, people need to keep something to themselves to nourish it and help it grow, until it’s ready to come out. Maybe it’s something she’s insecure about and doesn’t feel like you’d be supportive of.”

Ali thought of Lucia, and lump formed in her throat.

“What are the tears for, Ali?”

“This kitten I tried to save.” She told her therapist about Lucia, and how devastating it was to wake up to a dead kitten. She also told her therapist that she believed it was her mother sending the kitten into her care so she could mother it herself and get love back by caring for something else.

“Love doesn’t quite work that way. I have the feeling the kitten had something wrong with it and the mother cat knew it, so the mother cat abandoned it to die. You have a very gentle heart to try to save a helpless animal, but it’s possible it wasn’t going to survive. That’s not your fault, but you did give Lucia a nice few days of love and care. You should be proud of that.”

“I’m afraid I’d get Katie and Dad blowing up at me for taking in a stray animal that could have had  a disease.”

“That’s a legitimate concern. But I also find this an endearing quality in you. If they start to tell you that it was stupid, let them know it was the right thing to do and you wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night if you had just ignored Lucia. So, that made it the right choice and they have no right to tell you it wasn’t.”

“But… they’re older, they know better-”

“You’re almost an adult. You should be capable of making difficult gray-area choices. Your choice for yourself might not be the right choice for your father and sister if they were in the same situation. They aren’t recognizing you for your maturity and the best qualities in you if they try to infantilize you by lashing out at you for making choices without them. You’re such a sensitive, gentle soul, that it’s easy for them to take advantage of that to alleviate all their pain. In most abusive or dysfunctional families, there’s usually one persona that gets targeted for the worse of the abuse.”

“You think they’re abusing me? My family’s not...”

“I think they’re doling out all their anxiety and frustration onto you to regulate themselves, yes. Your father used alcohol and you suspect your sister’s using sex.”

Ali shrugged. “I guess so.”

“You don’t use anything? Self-harm, bulimia, starvation, drugs, prescriptions, huffing household products?”

Ali shook her head. “No. I don’t do that kind of stuff.”

“But you try to be perfect, don’t you?”

“Yeah, so? That’s not a crime.”

“Perfectionism is just as dangerous as any of those things you’ve named, Ali. And just as deadly.”

* * *

Ali went to church during the time Father Murphy’s secretary said he’d be taking confessions. Ali hadn’t contacted him since the hospital because she knew she’d feel terribly guilty. He’d probably react to her the way she feared her father would: berating her and chastisement for attempting suicide. She had to gerd herself for the tongue-lashing she was bound to get from him. She knew it would be humiliating, but humiliation seemed to be the biggest constant in her life, she might as well get used to it.

She lit a candle and knelt before it, saying a Hail Mary and Our Father before going to the pews to wait her turn.

A cute, elderly nun came out. Ali checked back and forth to see if anyone else was in line, and she went to the confessional. 

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”

“Alison?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to recognize you. Tell me your sins, my child.”

“Well…” She swallowed, feeling nauseous at the idea of admitting what had happened the last few weeks. “I think you know. I attempted to take my own life. Does this excommunicate me?”

There was a long silence in the confessional from Father Murphy’s end. “No, I’m not going to recommend excommunication in this situation.”

“You aren’t?”

“You were under an extreme amount of stress. And the way you spoke to me when we last talked... I was panicked. I went to the police immediately, and they said they’d knock on the door, but wouldn’t break it down unless you said you were in distress, and tried to talk to your father. They couldn’t reach him, though. You are in a very precarious and dangerous situation, even now. I think you were being preyed upon by demons.”

Katie and Dad didn’t believe in demons and exorcisms and that garbage. They were too scientific. They’d think Father Murphy was off his rocker. But her vision of her mother...

“That’s what I’m going to recommend to the diocese if the subject of your attempt comes up. I don’t think you were to blame. Just promise me you’ll reach out if you’re in crisis like that again, and you’re abandoned… are you still there?”

“Yes, Father, I am.”

“Was there a reason you attempted that?”

“Um… a lot of reasons. Do you have time?”

“I have all the time in the world for my flock. Go ahead.”

Ali told him about breaking her front tooth in half and being so ashamed that she quit everything she loved, and her father didn’t understand, and he abandoned her, and how uncertain things were getting, and then how the thought of killing herself would flash through her mind, uninvited, and Lucia, and then, she hesitated. She told him the dream, about her mother coming to her like the Virgin Mary in the painting in the vestibule, and handing her a razor blade as the article to take her life. “I felt like Mom was telling me to go ahead with it, so I could be with her. Why would she do that to me?”

“Alison, let me promise you something: that wasn’t your mother. That gives me chills, down to the bone, to imagine that something was imitating your mother and invoking imagery in your mind of the Virgin Mary to encourage you to take your own life. Under church law, I will face death before I tell anyone what you’ve just told me. But, I do think that something very dark and unholy was preying on you, even if you think your father and sister won’t agree in spirits and demons. I’d like to come to your apartment and bless it, if you’ll ask your father.”

“Dad’s in rehab.”

There was a pregnant silence. “Good. I hope he’ll get the help he’s looking for. I hope even more greatly that he’ll begin to come back to church. I hope that for your whole family.”

“How do you know that wasn’t my mother, though?”

“Your mother wouldn’t want you to waste the gift she gave you when she had you. No mother would. Her life was stolen from her. This thing that tried to trick you, it was trying to steal your life from you, too. It was trying to fool you. There are still dark forces in this world, dark forces that science can’t explain, even if people are leaning towards science. Science can be a good thing, but there are a lot of things it can’t explain just yet.”

“I’ll ask Katie if you can come over for the blessing.”

* * *

As Ali packed up the used dinner dishes to put in the dishwasher, Katie got a phone call, her nightly one.

“I’m going out,” Katie said, hanging up the phone.

“Wait! I went to confession today and Father Murphy asked if he could come over and bless the apartment. Can we have him over for dinner this week?”

Katie’s face blanched. “Well… Ali, this isn’t a good time for it.”

“He’s a priest, he just wants to come over to help-”

“Can we have it earlier in the day?” Katie asked. “I have things to do in the evenings-”

“Oh, I forgot. Your nightly trysts with random men are so important,” Ali said, feeling anger bubble up inside. Father Murphy had called the cops and saved her life, and was the most gentle person. The least they could do was have dinner with him and let him bless the apartment. Was Katie such a nymphomaniac that she couldn’t hold off for one night?

There was a long pause from Katie, and for a split second, she looked like she was going to cry. “Is that what you think of me?” Katie asked.

“Well, you’re leaving to do mysterious things you won’t tell me about after dinner every night. A guy calls and you go running, and come home covered in bruises and you have to take a shower, like you’re dirty or something. What else am I supposed to think?”

“You’re so quick to judge, Ali! That’s not fair! I gave up a year in Europe to come home and take care of you because Dad’s a piece of shit-”

“He’s making an effort, Katie! He put himself in rehab-”

“Yeah, just to look good to the judge trying his case!”

“Don’t _ you  _ ever look for the good in people?”

Katie shoved the condiment bottles back into the fridge and slammed it shut. “I do,” she said, glaring at Ali. “But I always wished you would too when you look at me. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She picked up her backpack and stormed out the door, leaving Ali alone.


	9. No More Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter I've been promising you! Things are about to turn around for Katie and Ali.

Ali felt the same rage she had felt for a long time. She’d plan a special dinner for Father Murphy herself. If it was a Friday, she’s make baked tilapia and green beans for him and she’d make sure the house was clean, the floors vacuumed, since Dad had had to dismiss their maid and she wasn’t coming any more. She decided to call Father Murphy’s office in the morning to arrange it. She heard Katie tiptoe into the apartment and sneak into the bathroom.

Just that she came home and did the same things, knowing she had been caught, made Ali angry.

She went into the steamy bathroom, closed the toilet cover and sat down, waiting on Katie to get out from behind the burgundy shower curtain.

“Ali?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Don’t scare me like that! You could knock, you know!”

“Do you really think what you’re doing is okay?” Ali asked. “Don’t you realize how much danger you’re putting yourself in-”

“I’m so glad you think I’m some stupid slut that would do it with any man who’d drop trou for a warm body. I have standards, you know, although maybe they’re not as impossible as yours, you hypocrite.”

“What? You think  _ I’m _ the hypocrite?” Ali couldn’t be more offended.

The water valve shut off and Katie’s arm reached out behind the curtain to grab the towel and brought it into the shower. “You can’t even attain your own standards, but you expect me to adhere to them.”

“You know that’s not nice!”

“You’re inconsistent,” Katie replied, pulling back the shower curtain, the towel wrapped around her torso. “And you have no patience for anybody who can’t live up to your impossible expectations, but try to hide your own failures. You go to church and act all pious and pure and innocent, but you’re so busy judging everybody else and making them feel like shit! Nobody deserves that, Ali! It’s not fair and it’s not right! Do you really think God’s going to let you into heaven if you keep being so inconsistent and judgmental?”

“I’m not…” Ali’s brain thought back to how she had been so angry at Katie for going against the religion their mother valued so much, first cutting out on mass every week, then having sex with random men and God knows what other secret she kept. “If you’d just be honest with me-”

“Whenever I am, you start lecturing me. And it doesn’t make me feel very good, so you understand why I keep secrets?” she asked, coming her wet hair out in the fogged up mirror.

“Katie, even if you  _ think _ I’m being judgemental, what you’re doing is dangerous! You’re raising your risk of getting an STD or getting pregnant or-”

“I’m not having sex right now, okay?” Katie snapped hotly, her dark eyes focusing on her little sister, standing the corner in her pajamas. Ali was dumbfounded that Katie would claim that. “Not that it’s any of your business what I’m doing, Ali.”

“It is! You’ve got custody of me right now, what do I say when people ask me why you’re not as home with me, when I just got out of the hospital-”

“I have hopes and dreams of my own too, got it? And I know you’d laugh at me or tell me I’m being stupid if I told you what was going on.”

“Well then, what  _ is  _ going on that’s so important you have to keep it a secret from me?”

Katie put down the hair dryer she had just plugged in, and looked sheepish. “I… I’m taking Krav Maga classes.”

“What is that? A Russian cooking course?”

“No! It’s a Hebrew Martial Art that the Israeli Military uses, and it’s really effective with the way women’s bodies are formed. I got into a late-night class but I had to pay upfront, and the policy is that I can’t make up classes. That’s why I come home and take a shower every night, because I stink from sweating so hard after sparring.”

“Why do you want to take that?” Ali asked, perplexed, her nose wrinkling.

“See! You’re doing it right now, making that look of disgust at me!” Katie cried.

“I’m not… _ disgusted _ with you. But why do you suddenly need to know how to beat people up?”

“I’m not doing this to dominate people or hurt them, I just want to know how to defend myself because…. Nevermind.”

“No, you have a reason you’re hiding from me!” Ali cried, suddenly horrified that this was being spurned on in her sister because she had been violated, raped, or molested and Ali had no idea.

“I’m not… you’ll think it’s stupid,” Katie said, turning on the hair dryer. “Go to bed.”

“No, I will not!” Ali shouted, but Katie couldn’t hear her over the noisy appliance. Ali ripped the plug out of the socket, killing the hairdryer. “Tell me!”

Katie looked a little sheepish suddenly. “I’m going to apply to be a New York City police officer this spring so I can get into the police training program when I graduate. I’ll be a target because I’m female, I need to know how to fight off attackers and defend myself. And the physical aspect is going to be tough, too; grueling in fact. They’re not going to go easy on me because I’m a woman. There, that’s why I’m taking Krav Maga! And you’re still wrinkling your nose like- stop it! I can see you think I’m so butch and not girly enough and-”

“I- I don’t think that of you! But why become a  _ cop _ , of all things? I mean… you know the reputation cops have!”

“Reputations aren’t always the truth. I’ve met a few good cops while you were in the hospital. And I’ve been considering going this route after I graduate in May for a long time.”

“But… cops aren’t that smart-”

“That’s really rude to think that. And very judgy.”

“I’m not-”

“Yes, you are!”

“But- you were planning on taking the L-SATs and applying for law school-”

“Dad was planning on that for me. I don’t want that. I want… I want to help people. Lawyers get hardened and get wary of anybody who wants to help. They’ve got one of the highest addiction and divorce rates, next to doctors. Just look at Dad.”

“But… you’ll be too smart for all them, you got into Stanford! They won’t take you seriously because you’re a woman, either-”

“That’s not true, about them all being dumb. The ones that worked your case, they’re really smart. The one I talked to got into Harvard, but his single mother couldn’t afford to send him there, so he did community college and became a cop instead. And he said, yeah, women catch a lot of crap during training, but they end up being the most respected people on the force for overcoming so much more than the men do. I want to be that. I want to make a difference, and… I don’t care if you think I’m selling out for a job you think is  _ sooo  _ beneath us. God forbid I do something that makes me happy!”

“I don’t think that being a cop is…” Ali stopped herself. She  _ had _ just told Katie that cops were stupid compared to the people in their family. It struck her that she was passing some judgments that weren’t very fair. “I’m sorry. Maybe I was being judgmental. Maybe I don’t know all the facts about policework.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Katie responded. “After seeing how much Dad’s partners are doing to get him out of these child neglect charges with just a slap on the wrist, I’m just losing my faith in lawyers. Why would I want to  _ be _ one? But I still want to help people, people who are falsely accused or have had something taken from them that was really important, like… a loved one. I don’t see how I can do that as a lawyer without robbing people blind. Take Back the Neighborhood disbanded after Mom died and nobody took her place. But I can do so much more as a cop. It would mean a lot to me if you’d support me on this. Without judgment or making those grossed-out faces you do.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just a habit. I guess I do those faces because… nobody ever hears me when I try to speak, but they see my expressions. And that speaks for me, sometimes. I wish I was as articulate as you. Nobody listens to me, and when they do, it’s just to make fun. And mock me. You do it.”

Katie’s shoulder slumped and she plugged the hairdryer back in. “I’m not proud of that, you know? It’s hard to see you being so helpless, when I know you’re not.”

“I’m  _ not _ capable,” Ali mumbled. “I killed a kitten while everybody abandoned me, you know.”

“Ali, how could you?” Katie cried. “That’s terrible!”

“Not on purpose!” Ali cried. “I was trying to save it!”

“Is that why there’s newborn kitten formula in the fridge?” 

“Yes.”

“I bet it was already sick and dying when you found it. I bet it wasn’t your fault. Did you take it to the vet?”

“I couldn’t afford to,” Ali admitted. “I took it to a pet store, they sold me the formula.”

“I bet if you had taken it to a vet’s office, they would have told you it was going to die anyway.” 

“This. This is what I want: just to talk to you and understand why… why things happened the way they did! Nobody will tell me!”

Katie fidgeted with the hairdryer for a second, considering. “Can you let me dry my hair and get some clothes on? Just wait in my room, alright?”

* * *

Katie came into the bedroom a few minutes later with dry hair and was wearing her glasses. She got out some fresh pajamas and underwear. Ali could see the bruises a little more clearly on her body, now, most were on her arms and shoulders. Why had she thought there was something so disgusting and sexual going on all this time?

“So what do you want to know?” Katie asked, slipping her panties on under the towel. “Let me see if I can answer you. I don’t know all the answers either, just so you know.”

“Did you really think you wouldn’t be able to explain to me why you want to be a cop? And you let me think horrible things about you, that you weren’t a virgin anymore-”

“I’m not,” Katie said, stepping into her pajama bottoms. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have standards. My vagina isn’t a Sonic Drive-In, you know, I actually care about who I’m sleeping with. I’m kind of insulted you thought that of me.”

“Well for the last three years, every guy at school can’t stop telling me how hot my big sister was, and how they totally want copies of your modeling pictures, like I don’t even exist. They all brag they banged you once.”

“Ugh, modeling,” Katie grumbled. With her back to her sister, she tossed the damp towel aside, exposing her bare back, and pulled a sleeveless sleep top over her head before hanging up the towel. “I’ll have you know, I graduated high school a virgin. And I hated modeling.”

“Why? It was proof you were so beautiful and everybody loved you and-”

“Not everybody loved me. The models I met and worked with were some of the meanest, most insecure people I’ve ever met,” Katie said. “They could be really selfish at times, too. If all attention wasn’t on them, they hated whoever it was diverted to. And my agent would set up my interviews on one side of Manhattan, and the next one would be on the otherside. And I had to basically run all the way there, because if they found out I’d had taken a cab or the metro, even in the rain, they’d report it back to my agency, and the agency would get on my case about it. And let’s not even get started with how I was weighed and measured like a piece of cattle every week… in front of a whole panel of people at the agency. Can you imagine having to stand in a bikini in front of a team of people talking about all your flaws? Completely true story. And some of the photographers… they were creeps. They tried to seduce me, hit on me, and I was just an underage girl at that time. And it creeped me out and scared me. When I told Mom the truth about what was happening at these interviews and shoots, she let me quit. It wasn’t as easy and glamorous as it seems, Ali, I promise. It may have seemed empowering from the outside, but it really wasn’t for me. I don’t ever want you going into that industry because it’s filled with some of the sleaziest people imaginable.”

Ali couldn’t imagine anybody not thinking her sister was the hottest thing alive, that was all she ever heard when people talked to her about Katie. Nobody ever called Katie fat or unattractive to Ali. Everyone gushed about how beautiful and perfect Katie was and made Ali feel like a pig in comparison. The only people she had ever run into that talked bad about Katie were the girls whose boyfriends dumped them in pursuit of her sister. What her sister was saying made so little sense to her. “Did you tell Dad?”

“Hell no, I didn’t! Dad can’t handle the idea of me having sex, he wouldn’t have known what to do if I had told him what what going on in the modeling world.”

“But he calls us both sluts all the time-”

“Because that’s the thing he thought would hurt us the most to be called. Did you notice he only called us that when he was trashed?” Katie climbed up on her bed and stuck her feet under the covers to warm them up.

“Well… no, I hadn’t really.”

Katie shrugged. “Dad’s a complicated guy, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” Ali sighed. She hadn’t been a good enough daughter for him to stop yelling at her and to stop his drinking. That thought ate her up inside.

“Our family’s really complicated,” Katie added.

“We don’t communicate very well, do we?” Ali guessed.

“No, we really don’t. We don’t know how to talk to each other.”

“I’m not trying to make you mad when I say this and make you not listen to me, but I feel like you short-circuit and blow up at me over the littlest things, sometimes, because it’s safe. You know I’m not going anywhere and I’ll be there to take it all over again a half hour later. And all I can do is yell back at you, even though you aren’t listening, just trying to out-shout me.”

Katie winced. “I’m sorry, Ali. I’m sorry I’m so mean to you… And I’m sorry our last words in person before I left for the Ukraine were ‘I hate you.’ I can’t even remember who said it first, but I’m sorry I did.”

“I can’t either, now.”

She thought she saw tears gathering in her sister’s eyes. Katie never cried. Ali couldn’t remember a time since Mom’s funeral that she had seen her sister cry. “I don’t hate you. But I almost lost you. And all I could think about the moment I got that weird email from you was, ‘I did this to her.’” Katie’s tears spilled over. “If you hate me, I don’t blame you. God, I really was being a violent asshole with you, all the times I knocked you over to yell at you and shoved you around. I was mad because you wouldn’t respond to my emails or calls. I thought you were playing the victim all this time because you  _ liked _ being the baby of the family and that’s why you wanted me around: so you didn’t have to act like an adult. I didn’t know… that you wanted to be one, but nobody was showing you how to…” She gulped back a guilty sob. “All I was thinking about was myself.”

Ali’s first response was  _ that’s okay _ , but she stopped herself. It wasn’t okay. She didn’t want to be guilty of making Katie feel worse, but she couldn’t pretend everything was okay. That was letting things go back to the way they were, giving her permission. And she did  _ not _ want to ever go back to that awful time. She didn’t like this, it was uncomfortable. But she couldn’t keep living this lie until things boiled over and she had another meltdown.

“Look, I don’t  _ hate _ you. You hurt me really badly when you ran off to Europe without preparing me for it, and it sucked that you said you hated me back… but I still love you. I only have one sister. I honestly thought that it was making things easier if you didn’t have the burden of taking care of me anymore. But I don’t know how to take care of myself, Katie. I don’t know how to leave Dad’s house and support myself. I don’t know how to do taxes or even kiss a boy or budget a household or… a lot of things. I’m just pathetic. I don’t know how I got in Stuveysant, unless it was a legacy student thing because of you. I wish I had Mom around.”

“I do, too. I still get scared about being out on my own and she’s not there.”

Ali took a gulp for courage. “Katie, I deleted your emails.”

“Really?”

Ali nodded.

“Good, because I was being an arrogant jerk in them. I never apologized for how I left. Or calling you mean things and...”

“Yeah, good thing I didn’t read them, them.”

“Yeah.” They both tried to chortle at that, they were now sitting with their foreheads touching, they were so close.

“What happened… when I came back… I realized I’ve let you feel like you’re a burden for a long time. You’re not. I promise, I’m going to change how I treat you, I don’t know how, but I will.” 

“Will you start by listening to me?”

“Sure. Okay.”

“I’d like you start by trying not to swear. At least around me. If you did that, I’d know you care about how I feel and because I asked you stop. I don’t like hearing you cuss like that. You’re so articulate, I think you can do better.”

Katie bit her lower lip and sighed. Ali could smell the mint of her toothpaste on her breath. “Alright. I’ll do my best. But don’t expect me to be perfect about it right away.”

“I won’t. We’re only human, it takes time to break bad habits, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does. Can we lay down?”

“Sure.”

The girls laid down in Katie’s bed and turned off the lights, gazing up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling in Katie’s room, talking. Ali hadn’t realized there was so much to talk about between the two of them. Katie tried to talk her into going back to winter guard, but Ali pointed out that the show was already being written and learned, and she had lost her spot and had fallen too far behind on the dues. 

“Maybe you can take dance class near by,” Katie suggested. “It wouldn’t be ABT, but dance is important to you.”

“It is,” Ali agreed. “Can we afford it, though?”

“Mmmmph,” Katie sighed. “Dad had an accountant take over our bills before he left for rehab. It’s a bare-bones kind of budget, though, since Dad’s not working and living off savings until he gets well enough to return to work.”

“Don’t worry about it, then,” Ali sighed. “I’ll be okay. To think we never wanted for anything until this last year.”

“But we’re going to be stronger for it,” Katie said. “Things suck, but we’ve got each other, right? And things aren’t always going to be like this. You can do nothing but dance classes your first year of college.”

“If I can actually  _ get _ into college, now,” Ali moaned.

“We’ll find a way. We’ll exhaust all our options and try to see it through, no matter how tough it is. You know, it doesn’t matter if Dad can come back into our lives or not. We can do it.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I’ll show you how… once I figure it out.”

The girls talked into the early hours of the morning, and Katie groaned when she saw the early morning light rising out the window. “I can’t believe we stayed up all night, talking.” 

“Me neither!”

But it was the best night she could ever remember with her sister.


	10. Bonded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Castle.
> 
> And I probably shouldn't try to post a new chapter after two glasses of Riesling.

The judge overseeing her father’s child neglect and abuse charges dismissed the case, with all the behind-the-scenes handshaking and good ol’ boy politics between her father’s partners and the DA. That didn’t change the fact that their father was still in rehab. When he got the news he wasn’t legal punishment and a custody battle for Ali, he decided to stay in the rehab clinic.

At first, Ali felt a bit indignant that her father wasn’t coming home immediately. But she knew she didn’t want him home just yet. And Katie started to become gentler with Ali, very slowly. Ali’s fears of confiding in her started to fade, now that she knew should trust Katie to keep the secrets of how she felt. Ali did have moments where she felt useless and like a burden. It felt like her depression would drag her back down into that failure-to-thrive spiral, but having someone around all the time to trust and confide in provided an emotional anchor. She realized Katie was doing the job of her mother. It wasn’t fair that Katie had to do it, but she was. And Ali felt a lot of relief at that.

Katie arranged a night to have Father Murphy over for dinner and a house blessing, which elated Ali.

“Understand, this doesn’t mean I want to come back to church,” Katie said. “But if it’ll make you feel better, let’s do it.”

“Why not came back to church? Come on, it’s something we can do together!” Ali pleaded.

“My relationship with God is complicated right now,” Katie mumbled.

Ali began to understand that the most she could do for Katie and her feelings about religion was to pray for her in private.

The girls moved into the master bedroom some nights so they could watch episodes of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Angel_. They ended up falling asleep in there after the TV was turned off. But actually falling asleep didn’t happen for an hour or so because… they would talk. Ali couldn’t really remember having a friend to talk to like this, ever. But still, Katie wasn’t the most pleasant person to wake up to, at least until after she had had her first cup of coffee for the day.

Ali spent most of her days reading and doing homework. The doctor’s appointments started to taper off, as did therapy. Ali dreaded what this meant: she’d have to go back to school soon, she didn’t have the excuses to send her homework in. Yes, she was missing senior year, but she didn’t really want to face all the cliques and gossip surrounding her life. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to handle that, yet.

“I’m not ready to go back to school,” Ali told her therapist.

“Why is that?”

“I’m doing just fine on my own at home. I know I don’t see a lot of people, and I’m not very social but…”

“But you’ll miss people eventually. And you and Katie will run out of things to talk about soon. She’ll want to go out and be with her friends sooner or later.”

That night Katie was off from classes, and the two tried to follow the recipe for pot roast from their mother’s recipe box together. “My therapist thinks I need to get back to school,” Ali said.

“Do you want to go? I think you’re getting along pretty well.”

“I wish I could just stay home and send all my homework in for life,” Ali muttered.

“You don’t want to turn into one of those hermits that’s afraid to leave the house.”

“Who says I haven’t, already?” Ali scoffed.

“They want us to come to Dad’s rehab center for a day,” Katie said. “There are support groups for children of Alcoholics, they’re called Al-Anon, and they want us to get involved in that. To support Dad’s recovery.”

“So we’re supposed to go in there and tell him everything’s alright?”

“I don’t know,” Katie said, shrugging.

The next afternoon, Katie came home from her morning classes with some news that shook them both: their father was getting out of rehab. Since he had self-admitted, he was being allowed to leave. He had put in an application for release that was being processed over four days. The clinic didn’t just allow him to walk out at will.

“Did he complete the program?” Ali asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you think he’s ready? That he’s okay?”

“I can’t tell! We were supposed to go in on Monday, and he’s getting out then!”

“I don’t think he’s ready to come home.”

“I don’t, either.”

“But we’ll be here for each other, right? We won’t let him pit us against each other again?”

Katie winced. “No. We stand strong if he starts that, this time.”

Ali’s therapist had recommended Al-Alon when she asked about it, too. “If he’s leaving rehab early, you need to be cautious. I don’t think you know the warning signs, yet, they’ll help you spot them. I’d encourage Katie, too. The two of you have made great strides together towards healing your relationship with each other, but he was in an incredibly volatile state when you last saw him. He might be stable right now, but there’s still a lot of healing left to do. And he got off without a punishment for abandoning you.”

“I doubt he’ll apologize for anything.”

“I’d encourage you to not be so cynical. Katie apologized and is trying to heal your relationship. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be wary, though. But give him a chance. We’ve talked about boundaries, you’ve got to learn how to set them, Ali.”

Ali nodded.

Ali dutifully went home and told Katie that she wanted to go to Al-Anon. The girls talked to their father when he called the apartment a few hours later.

The conversation was gentle and low-key. “I’m sorry I left for the cabin like I did. But I’m ready to come home and be the father you both deserve.”

Ali glanced over at Katie, who grimaced.

“We’ll make dinner for you, your favorite: Mom’s pot roast,” Katie offered. “We’ve been working on our cooking skills.”

“That’s nice to hear! I’m going to go to AA meetings and everything’ll be fine. You’ll go back to school, Alison, and Katie’s going to take the L-SATS-”

“Katie,” Ali hissed.

“Dad, I don’t know that I want to go to law school after I graduate.”

“Well, that’s alright, lots of people take a year off from school to get some real-world experience before going to law school. A lot of the junior associates at my firm did that. That’ll be useful. I’ll hire a new maid so you don’t have to worry about the housework, just finishing this year in school-”

“Dad, wait a second, can we even afford that?” Katie asked.

“Leave it to me,” he said. “I’m going back to work next week.”

“ _What?_ ” Ali mouthed to Katie, wrinkling her nose. Katie shrugged, confused.

“Well, we’re going to attend support meetings too, Dad,” Katie said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about Al-Anon, but that’s what was recommended.”

“Recommended by who?”

“Ali’s therapist. I’m trying to get on with the counseling center at NYU, too,” Katie said.

“Nonsense! I got this little problem fixed, and we’re going to be a happy family from here on out, because I don’t drink anymore.”

“What?” Ali said faintly, despite her horror. This was not some _little problem_. This had almost killed her and her father had almost gotten in trouble with the law (if they hadn’t been so well-connected). Ali felt like that creeping sense of embarrassment return. But was it enough to speak up about it? She wasn’t sure. He hadn’t heard her, he didn’t acknowledge her.

After hanging up with her father, she and Katie experimented with making a chicken and rice casserole from the recipe box. While they waited on it to bake, they turned on the TV to see if they could find something to watch, settling on some new sci fi show by Joss Whedon. Ali couldn’t pay attention.

Katie came back to the living room with two plates.

“Do you think Dad coming home is going to work out?” Ali asked.

Katie flipped of the television. “I felt kind of weird when we were talking to him. I think he wants to make things right. But does he actually know how?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if any of us know how to make things right.”

“Are you okay?”

“No… he… he never listens to me. How can you be okay when nobody can hear you?”

“I’ll make him listen,” Katie said, shoveling dinner into her mouth.

“He won’t. I just know deep down.”

“Don’t think negatively.”

“Just don’t turn on me,” Ali said.

“I’ve got your back,” Katie promised. “I’ve got to go to Krav Maga. I’ll check in with you when I get home.”

“Okay. Don’t break anything.”

“Only the hearts of weak men!”

* * *

 

The girls tried to make their mother’s pot roast again when their father came home. He greeted them with big hugs and some tears, telling them that he missed them terribly, and he was sorry for all the bad things that happened. For the moment, Ali believed him. The girls helped him with sorting his laundry take downstairs to the basement, and the books he unpacked from his dufflebag and things.

“I missed both of you so much. Rehab is a really humbling place, girls. I hope you never have to go there.”

“Me too,” Ali muttered.

“I’m going to be the best father you can ever imagine. I’ll get some tickets to the Yankees game,” Dad said eagerly. “All three of us, me and my girls.”

“That sounds good, Dad,” Katie said.

Ali had a doomed feeling about it all suddenly.

The next few weeks were nice, although not great. Ali had a doomed feelings every morning when she woke up. The leaves were turning, and October was coming up. Her father made her go to school and wanted to sit down and have a conversation with her about why it was important to get up and leave the house, not just mail in school work. He didn’t listen to her fears about if kids at school knew what had happened.

“You’re almost a grown woman, you’re going to let a few kids push you around? Alison, you’re better than this, you know. You’re a Beckett.”

“Do you know how it feels to have no friends at school-”

“So what if you’re not friends with your old friends? Just make friends with new ones. You’re a senior, anyway! Just smile and remember your manners and be positive.”

“Dad, it’s not-”

“You’re always so negative, Ali. I learned in rehab that a positive attitude can work wonders.”

Ali knew she wasn’t going to get through to him, but he was the parent, he was in control, neither she nor Katie were. She left a note for Katie on her pillow that she needed someone to talk to that night, Dad wasn’t listening.

She fell asleep re-reading _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ , but woke up to a soft knock on the door. She hadn’t been sleeping hard.

“Come in?” she called out softly. Katie opened the door, her hair wet and in her pajamas, fresh from a shower.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“I’m… I’m okay,” Ali said, putting a bookmark in the book. She couldn’t wait for JK Rowling to release _The Order of the Phoenix_. “Dad was just really pushy with me tonight about going back to school.”

Katie sat down on the bed next to her, sliding her feet under the blankets. Her skin was warm from the hot water and she smelled like her cherry-scented shampoo and Dial soap. “I think he just thinks that’s normal for you to be in a classroom. That’s why he’s pushing you so hard to go back.”

“I tried to tell him I was scared of going.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The gossip. Some of the girls at Stuyvesant can be real mean. Incredibly mean.”

“Why do you think I hung out with all the boys all the time?”

“Good point. But… he’s acting like it’s so easy. He gives me crap advice and I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Dad has a really nostalgic view of what childhood is like, like it was all fun and games,” Katie said. “Did you try to make him listen?”

“My words would have fallen on deaf ears. He doesn’t listen to me. I think you’re the only person that does.”

“That’s not true. Your therapist listens... Because we pay him to.”

“You hag!” Ali cried. And she giggled: it was kind of funny, and it was just like what Katie would have said before Mom died, back when things weren’t so dire and depressing. They laughed together, as quietly as possible, so they didn’t wake Dad. “I feel like we’re on the edge, right now,” Ali whispered. “You and me, we’re standing on the edge holding each other up and Dad could drag us down at any moment.”

“I feel like that way, too. But I can get away if I wanted to, I’m adult. But if you did, you’d be a runaway. I’ll never leave. Until you can.”

“You won’t?”

Katie shook her head. “I’ll take you with me. We’re sisters, right? I forgot about that for a while.”

They snuggled under the covers together, Katie’s head getting cold from her wet hair.

“If anybody messes with you at school, I’ll go there and set them straight okay?”

“No,” Ali said. “Not unless it gets really bad.”

“But tell me about it, though. I don’t want you ever feeling alone. I did that to you. And you’re not alone.”

“We’re all we have against the world, right?”

“Right. You know, some of the guys in my Krav Maga class talk about spirit and guts, like it’s some big guy bonding thing, but… I think we should be that way.”

“Instead of being sugar and spice and everything nice?”

“Who needs sugar and spice! We can be tough! Some girls are made of adventure and fine beer, brains and no fear!"

“Yeah! I like it. That’s our new motto!”

“Cool! I like it!... I also found a therapist at NYU that’s willing to take me on.”

“You did? That’s great!”

“Yeah. I’m really scared about Dad being back home with us. He’s not stable, I know that, it’s really obvious. I think he _thinks_ he’s cured and so much wiser now and knows everything… I don’t know if that’s true. He’s never apologized for how he talked to us.”

“Yeah, he didn’t,” Ali said, realizing it.

Ali realized the mean glint in Katie’s eyes was missing. It seemed Katie’s meanness had melted away once Ali stopped judging her. Had Katie had to put up a wall against what she thought was Ali’s judgments? Ali berated herself for that, but forgave herself at the same time: she hadn’t known that she was doing something wrong. She had been hurting Katie, and hadn’t realized it. She wasn’t sure who started it, but she didn’t care. She trusted Katie more than anybody in the world. And she was so grateful.


	11. Second Skin

Ali was sent back to school against her will by her father shortly after this conversation. She worried that she wouldn’t be able to cover up the ridge on her wrist that she had sliced open a month ago. She couldn’t relax in her bed.

Around eleven, Katie came back in, and Ali heard her. She took a shower, and then stuck her head into Ali’s room. Ali sat up when she saw her.

“Hey, you’re still awake?”

“Yeah,” Ali said.

“What’s the matter?” Katie asked, entering the room.

“I keep thinking about… what if people see my scar? I wasn’t thinking straight when I did it, and now everybody’s going to see it and…”

“Let’s plan your outfit,” Katie offered, going to her closet. “Long sleeves can cover it up.”

Ali frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t wear long sleeves forever. Especially when it warms up in the spring. And what am I going to tell everybody?”

“That you were… visiting me in the Ukraine. That’s why you missed the first month of school.”

“Nobody’ll believe that!”

“Just tell them we met some really hot guys, Mikhail and Ivan, new Russian millionaires, and… we got carried away and travelled all over Europe with them in Lamborghinis or Ferraris or something.”

“I doubt anybody would believe that.”

“Just supply a few details and they’ll believe anything. Just don’t talk about it, let them get it out of you, like it’s some big secret.” Katie tossed some long-sleeve tops down onto the bed. “Okay, what do you want to wear with this? Your khakis?”

“No, let me figure it out,” Ali said, getting a pair of skirts out. “I don’t know. I guess this.” She tossed the skirt and the long-sleeve top onto the desk chair. “Thank you for trying to help me.”

“Anytime. You know what else you could do? Just lose yourself in a book and read. That way, you don’t have to talk to anybody you don’t want to. Be right back…”

She ran off to her room and came back a moment later with a glossy paperback comicbook in hand. “Here.  _ Sandman  _ by Neil Gaiman. I think you’ll like it.”

“I guess,” Ali muttered.

“We agreed to go to Al-Anon tomorrow, right? Do you want me to meet you after school?”

“Could you?”

“Of course. Go to bed, you’ve got to get up early.”

* * *

Ali’s stomach churned as she walked into the imposing building of Stuyvesant. She had to check in with the principal’s office, which she was not excited about.

She stepped inside the office to check in, and Dr. Housewell was just getting in. “Alison! It’s so nice that you’re back,” he said. “Come on in,” he unlocked the door to his office and held it open for her. She went inside and sat down across from his desk. He came in a moment later with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. “We got the news about what happened that kept you out for the first few weeks of school. Don’t worry, we’ve kept it quiet within the faculty. Now, I’m proud of you for making up all the schoolwork, but I think we need to have a discussion about your options here. You know that the work principal is spelled P-R-I-N-C-I- _ pal _ , right?”

Ali gave him a closed-lip smile. How incredibly corny. She wasn't buying it. “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good. I’m your  _ pal _ .You can trust me if you need a friend, or any of the Vice Principals,” he said. “We’ve also got guidance counselors you can talk to if it’s an emergency. Alright?”

“Alright,” Ali said.

“I wanted to make sure you had a list of numbers you can call for any concerns, too. So here’s a copy of them,” he said, handing her a print-out. “We do care about you, alright?”

“I’m glad, sir.”

“Good. Here’s your class schedule and administrative information for the year. Now come by the front office any time if you need anything.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“Have a good day.”

Ali went on to homeroom to check in with her teacher, and saw some of the girls from guard sitting together, chatting. They looked at her as if she had two heads. Ali took a seat on the other side of the room and went to push her sleeves up, but paused, realizing her scar on her wrist was showing. She tugged the sleeves back down on her top.

Lauren and Beth, two of the most popular girls in school, were sitting together discussing how Mandy Moore was more talented than Britney Spears right beside Ali. “Ali! I thought you transferred schools!” Lauren cried.

“I didn’t,” Ali said, getting out a book. She started reading  _ Sandman  _ to ignore them. “I’m back.”

Lauren and Beth went back to discussing what a skank Britney Spears was, and how much more talented Mandy Moore was instead.

The day wore on, and Ali got through, trying to lose herself in books instead of people. When three o’clock rolled around, Ali found her sister waiting outside on her motorcycle.

“How was your first day?” Katie asked, handing her the helmet.

“It was okay,” Ali shrugged.

“Guess what? The church where the meeting is isn’t too far from here. It’s like... right around the corner.”

“Oh yeah?” Ali asked, strapping the helmet on her head and under her chin. She climbed onto the backseat of the bike and Katie revved the engine.

Down the block, around the corner, the 1st United Presbyterian Church looked mostly deserted, but they found an open door around the side, where someone went inside.

“Are you here for the Al-Anon meeting?” the guy they followed in asked.

“Yeah, we are,” Katie said. 

“Good, I’m the leader. I could use some help with setting up.”

“We’ll be fine with that,” Katie said.

They helped with unfolding the chairs in a circle while the group leader started the coffee and got out some stale animal crackers on a platter. A few more Al-Anon people filed in, and got coffee and conversed. At 3:30, the meeting officially started.

After the opening prayer, everyone was introduced and discussed their problems with alcoholic parents and codependence. At the very end, the leader introduced the Beckett girls.

“Hi, I’m Kate, and I’m the daughter of an alcoholic,” Kate said, going first. “This is my first meeting, and I brought my little sister with me. I’m a college student, but I’m staying at home just to make sure she’s okay. Our father just left rehab before graduation, and I’m kind of worried. I’ve voluntarily entered therapy at NYU, because he has a really bad way of turning my sister and I against each other.”

“That’s quite normal,” the leader said. “Not healthy, but normal. Children of alcoholics are usually pitted against their siblings, because it keeps the alcoholic in control. Keep that in mind, and thank you for coming, Kate.”

It was Ali’s turn. “I’m Ali, I’m Katie’s little sister, and I’m the child of an alcoholic,” Ali said. “Yes, we’re named Kate and Ali, but that was long before the show came on. My dad made me go back to school today, and I was really nervous. I’m trying to read a lot so I don’t have to talk to people, I just missed a month of school because of my Dad.”

“Because of your dad?” the leader asked, skeptically.

“Well… he left me to go to Vermont to drink like a lush at the beginning of the school year, and I was really depressed and alone and…” Ali closed her eyes, ashamed.

Katie hand’s found Ali’s shoulder.

“I attempted suicide. And I’ve got a scar on the inside of my wrist, and I went to school today, wearing a long sleeve shirt to cover it up, but I kept on exposing my wrists, and… I don’t want to go back. I’m afraid of the questions and the gossip, I just want to disappear…”

“Don’t be afraid of that stuff,” a chubby guy wearing eyeliner said. “The name’s Shawn. Let me see that scar.”

He got up and crossed the circle, a little too daintily and examined Ali’s wrist. “Hmm. Quick and easy fix. Just a second,” he got something out of his dufflebag and came back to her: he slipped some long, fingerless black gloves on hand and then faux-pearl bracelet tied with a silky ribbon around her recovering wrist. Her handed her the right-handed one. “There.”

Ali couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered long, black fingerless gloves with buttons over the wrists. And the bracelet he had given her was just…  _ her _ . It was magic, as if he knew her style after just being introduced to her. “Thank you!” she cried, grinning up at him. “It’s perfect! I love it!”

“You’re welcome, missy!”

* * *

After they said the closing prayer, Ali and Katie went up to Shawn to thank him for the gloves and bracelet. “Thank you these things,” Ali said to him. “It was really generous. Can we pay you for you them?”

“Don’t worry about it. We try to help each other where we can,” he said, folding his chair.

“That’s great styling. What do you do for a living?” Katie asked.

“I do make-up and hair during the day and in the evenings, I do drag.”

Ali wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. 

“Like, you’re a drag queen?” Katie asked.

“Exactly! And I’d love to do your make-up and hair sometime, young ladies! You’ve got beautiful bone structure, both of you!”

Ali blushed. She wasn’t used to being told she was as beautiful as Katie. “Thank you,” Katie answered for them both, and elbowed Ali.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Ali’s a little shy sometimes,” Katie explained.

“All you need with that is a pair of tiny rhinestone diamond earrings and some lace-edged tops, and you’ll look fabulous,” Shawn said to Ali. Ali imagined what she’d look like in this outfit he described: like modern-day poetess, like Sylvia Plath or Emily Bronte. 

“I’ll see if I have some,” Ali said.

“You should find something and wear it to my drag show at the Drag Corral.”

“The… Drag Corral?”

“Well, she’s underage,” Katie admitted, but then flashed a grin. “But I’m not!”

“Oh, this is New York City, we can sneak her in,” Shawn said. “You girls, here’s my number, you let me know if you need anything, alright?” He got out his business card out of his duffle bag and handed it to Katie.

“We will,” Katie said. “Thank you for the warm welcome.”

“I’ll see you Friday?”

“Sure,” Katie said.

By now, all the chairs had been folded up and put away, and the others were leaving, the coffee cooling. Ali and Katie went home to work on dinner.

 


	12. Decisions

Ali went into school the next morning with her fingerless gloves and the ribbon pearl bracelet on, and a carefully chosen outfit. She liked what she was wearing, and Lauren and Beth both noticed when she sat down in Homeroom.

“Ali, I love your bracelet,” Beth piped up suddenly.

“Oh, thank you,” Ali said, secretly overjoyed, although she gave her a smile.

“Where’d you get it?” Lauren asked.

“Oh, a street vendor in SoHo,” Ali lied.

At lunch time, Beth and Lauren invited Ali to sit with them and their boyfriends. They were the “crew” at Stuyvesant High, the fashionable kids wearing Abercrombie & Fitch. Ali sat down with her lunch tray.

“You know, you’ve got really great style, Ali,” Lauren admitted. “I want to see if I can find fingerless gloves after school. Wanna go back down to SoHo this afternoon and see if you can find that same vendor?”

“Sure,” Ali said, but she was a little panicked that they’d figure out that she had lied where she got it.

“Where’d you get the idea for that?” Beth asked.

“In… the Ukraine. I went to visit my sister when she was over there for school.”

“That’s why you were missing the first month of school, wasn’t it?”

Ali nodded. “I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to go visit her,” she said.

“Isn’t that where all the Nazi are?” one of the guys asked.

“No, the Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union during the Cold war, though,” Ali explained. She couldn’t wait to tell Katie that the gloves and pearls had worked. And Shawn, of course.

After school, Ali met with Beth and Lauren to go to SoHo to go shopping. To Ali’s relief, they found a vendor with the gloves, and later down the street, they found a bead shop that made the ribbon pearl bracelets. They gave Ali their numbers and they agreed to go to the movies on Friday night.

Ali went home to find Katie had already started dinner.

“You’re home late!” Katie remarked.

“My gloves and bracelet were a hit!” Ali announced. “The popular girls went to SoHo with me to find some of their own.”

“I love that look but it’s too much for me,” Katie admitted. “Maybe on a day when I don’t have Krav Maga, I’ll try to style myself. But you’ll have to tell me if everybody’s wearing it tomorrow!”

* * *

Ali’s style started to sweep Stuyvesant. By Halloween, all the girls were wearing something similar to Ali’s longer, fingerless gloves with bracelets, and rhinestone earrings. And most of them were talking about her going to the Ukraine to be a model with her sister, which was why she had disappeared at the beginning of the year. Ali didn’t talk a lot, she realized that gave her an air of mystery. She found that if she smiled coyly as she walked by, boys started to notice her. They’d call her cell phone, and she’d usually let it go to voicemail. Then, the texts came. Ali found that if she didn’t answer right away, it made guys more interested in her.

Lauren noticed how well Ali was doing with boys in the senior class, and Ali noticed that Lauren seemed a little jealous, but wouldn’t stay it up front.

“You know, I think you should date Jason Tuttle,” Lauren said to her one day in the girl’s room, applying her lipstick in the mirror over the sink. “He likes brunettes.”

“You think he likes me?” Ali asked, adjusting her hair.

“Oh yeah! I’ve noticed the girls he dates since freshman year. He doesn’t date blondes too often. You’re just his type. You’re quiet. He likes quiet girls because... you know he likes to be the center of attention.”

Ali checked her phone and saw three new text messages, one of which was from Jason Tuttle.

“Well, I’ll keep him on my list,” Ali said, picking up her backpack and leaving the restroom.

* * *

Ali sneaked into the apartment, hoping she wasn’t making so much noise she woke Katie up. Tonight hadn’t been ideal. Four weeks of dating Jason and it seemed it was all going downhill. Ali was a little annoyed with it, to be honest. Maybe taking a break from Jason was the best idea, but not breaking up. She got a bottle of chilled water out of the fridge, only to stand up to her sister appearing out of thin air, and evil grin of her face, making her jump and shriek. "You scared me!"

“You’re home late,” Katie chuckled.

“Just like you to sneak around like a ninja! Well, it’s after midnight, so Happy Birthday.”

Katie's evil grin relaxed. “You’re so sweet! Thank you!”

“Just a second, I have something in my room for you, just wait here!” Ali called. She ran to her room and found the bag that she had stashed Katie’s gift in and ran back out to the kitchen. “Here ya go!”

“I love you,” Katie sighed, accepting the gift. "You're the best."

“You didn’t even open the gift, yet!” Ali cried.

Katie rolled her eyes and opened it. “Here, I'll open it right now. Oh, you got me fingerless gloves and a pearl bracelet!” she cried, pulling out the items. “Thank you!”

“That’s not all! I’d be a complete narcissist if that was all I gave you,” Ali said.

Katie dug into the gift bag and pulled out a long silver chain necklace with a citrine-type pendant on it. “Oh, Ali, this is beautiful!” she cried.

“I’m so glad you like it,” Ali said, grinning to herself.

“It’s your birthstone. Well, it’s supposed to be. It’s not the real thing, I can’t afford that, yet.”

“Who cares? It’s great,” Katie said, slipping it on over her head. “So, did anything, you know… _happen_ with Jason tonight?” Katie raised an eyebrow at her knowingly.

“Like I’d tell you!” Ali cried, sitting down at the breakfast nook. Although she knew she’d do it anyway.

“Oh come on, I’m your sister!” Katie cried, picking up a banana from the fruit bowl, but hesitating and tossing it back for an orange.

“Well… something _almost_ happened, but Jason’s…. Jason’s an idiot.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said… it _almost_ happened, and the dumbass kind of… _finished_ before anything could _happen,_ if you know what I mean.”

“Oh. Oh!” Katie burst into giggles, which she tried to quiet down.

“And I said, ‘hey, I’m kind of relying on your experience here, I thought you knew what you were doing.’ And he said, ‘Well… I’m sorry… I kind of… let you think… duhhh… I’m a virgin, too.’ I got so mad at him!”

“You should be! He lied!” Katie cried, sitting down across from her, peeling the orange with her long, thin fingers.

“No, he didn’t _lie,_ or at least he claimed he didn’t. But he was always like, ‘You’re so special, Ali. I want you to be the next girl I sleep with’ every time I’ve fooled around with him.”

“He’s an asshole. Do you need me to go and set him straight?” She handed Ali a chunk of orange slices.

“No. Not yet. I told him we need to take a few days off so I can calm down. But if he goes around school telling everybody he nailed me, I’m going to be so pissed that I might need you.”

“No, don’t get mad. Do you understand that if he does that, you own him?”

“I couldn’t think of anything worse than him telling everyone.”

“Oh, no. You can do much, much worse. You can tell everybody that you had to punch him in the face and slap him with a dead fish until he called you _mommy_ and curled up into the fetal position to cry. You can tell everyone he’s pathetic. You can… _lie_ about the size of his... _assets_. You can totally humiliate him if he tries to do something like that. Don’t put up with it.”

“You know that guys that remembered you after you graduated bragged like that? That they all had sex with you?”

“They wish! I was a tease in high school, I admit, but I have no regrets. You know what, this is not a conversation to have over fruit,” she said, tossing the rest of the orange side and getting up to get the carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream from the freezer. Ali grabbed some spoons from the spoon drawer so they could dig in. “Seriously, if I had to put up those jerks daily, I’d spread those kinds of rumors about them.”

“I’ll probably have to sleep with him anyway,” Ali said. “He could do worse to me by telling everyone I’m still a virgin.”

“Don’t! You don’t _have_ to do anything with him! I wish you would just break up with him, you know? That’s just… I know you hate it when I swear, but that was just shitty for him to do to you. Don’t put up with a guy you care about if he has no qualms about lying to your face. I wish I had waited a little longer, held out for someone that really cared about me. I told you what happened my first time at Stanford and how the guy I slept with ignored me afterwards. I totally screwed him over afterwards, but, Ali, we kind of have the power over the entire relationship. I don’t know if you understand that.”

Ali shrugged, scraping up another spoonful of the green ice cream and mint-chips. “I don’t know. _You_ have that power. I don’t.”

“You know, I think Dad and I are waiting until you realize that you’re actually really pretty. A lot prettier than normal people. Dad’s terrified of you actually figuring that out, I’m trying to help you into it, though. You’d be a force to be reckoned with if you believed it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe one day.”

“Ali… listen. You can do better. Don’t you want this to be with someone who cares enough about you and is willing to be vulnerable with you? That he’d be honest with you, even if it’s tough to be? If Jason was willing to lie to your face and misrepresent himself, why would you trust him with… your whole body? It’s important, right?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“It’s _so_ important!”

“God, this is embarrassing!” Ali giggled.

“Well, I don’t want you getting hurt,” Katie said. Ali’s giggling stopped: Katie was serious. “I took you to the clinic for birth control when you started dating Jason, so I can protect you from something like getting pregnant. But I can’t protect you from him if he takes advantage of your heart.”

Ali realized Katie was absolutely right. Katie put the spoon down.

“You’re so important, Ali. I know Mom exposed to us to all this sexual liberation stuff, but… we had to put you back together last August. That was so hard. I’d do it all over again for you, but I love you too much to just allow you to go through falling apart again without trying to stop you.”

The ice cream seemed too sweet and frothy, suddenly. Ali lowered her spoon. “I guess I’m going to bed, now,” she said, getting up. She put her spoon in the dishwasher. “Good night.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

In her bedroom, she thought about it. Katie loved her enough that she didn’t want her little sister’s first sexual experience to be a trauma, or to hurt her. Ali realized she didn’t want that, either. It was obvious Katie wanted her to have good sex, healthy sex, that was why she had taken her for birth control. Ali had seen sex and virginity as something to get out of the way, something to give up, as if it were a plague or disease. Ali realized that virginity wasn’t something to be given up so quickly to someone she didn’t necessarily like. It was supposed to be with someone who she liked… no, _loved_ , a lot. It was part of what made her… well, _her_.  She didn’t want to throw it away like garbage. It was important. And she realized the only reason why she had wanted to have sex so badly was because she was concerned what her frenemies would think of her.

 _Why do I hang out with those girls, anyway? They’re not very nice,_ Ali realized. Lauren had pushed her into dating Jason. Ali had been reluctant. But she did it anyway to keep Lauren relaxed. And Beth had no brain, sometimes. She was a complete follower.

Ali decided that she did deserve better than Jason, the boy who had lied to her face and expected her to give up her virginity to him, to be the first boy to start her sexual experiences in life. She deserved someone who really loved her and cared about how she felt and what she experienced, what he could provide her. Jason didn’t know what he was doing. Jason had been posturing and trying to make himself out to be something he was not to impress her. When the truth came out, he didn’t impress her at all.

She’d have been fine if he had told her he was a virgin, too. In fact, she’d have found it sweet and endearing and would have been even more eager to ease him into the world of sexual experiences. And even after he had lied, she thought about getting screwed into sleeping with him because of his popularity.

Katie had insisted she was important. Her body was important. More important than the rumor mill at school, that she probably wasn’t going to have to put up with next year in college. The rumor mill was so silly and so short-term. Katie had insisted that the people in high school that manipulated her weren’t people she’d probably ever see again for another ten years until the high school reunion. Ali had a hard time believing it, but… all rational thought convinced her that it was true.

Ali got her phone off the charger and sent Jason some text messages. It was time to end this.


	13. Sobriety Test

The next morning they left early to meet with Shawn and tell him what had happened. Shawn was supportive and encouraged them for the way that they had handle things. “You did the right thing,” he promised. “Your dad’s drinking again. I promise you, you’re both right: he’s completely full of crap. If he wasn’t, he’d have apologized for you finding those bottles, instead of pretending they were forgotten. He knows you both know, the only person he’s lying to is himself.”

“I think he’s serious about kicking me out,” Katie added.

“Girl, don’t worry. I’ve got the hookup,” Shawn promised. “And you can stay with me until you get into your own place.”

“And I think… I don’t want Ali in there with him. If I move out, I’m determined to take her with me. She’s not safe in my father’s house until he really gets his act together.”

“Katie, I know it’s tempting to be tough on him. And the way he’s acting, you probably think he deserves it. But trust me, he hates himself. He’s just trying to hold onto Ali to prove to himself he’s a good dad, when he really doubts it for himself.”

“But… that means… he _needs_ me,” Ali said, feeling uneasy.

“He does, but that’s part of what you have to do: set firm boundaries to show him he can’t have you in his life until he stops drinking. And treats you like a person, not an object. I listen to what you tell me about him, and I understand his self-hate.”

“I think he thinks a lot of himself,” Ali muttered.

“He does,” Katie said. “I sometimes think he blames himself for Mom’s death, that if he had done something different, she’d be alive. He didn’t protect her.”

“That’s part of survivor’s guilt, I think. It’s almost seven-fifteen, come on, don’t you have class, Ali? Let’s go.”

He took the two of them to drop Ali off at Stuyvesant, and gave Katie a ride to her Advanced Sociology eight o’clock class in his 1970s VW bug. Ali pulled on her long, fingerless gloves as she got out of the car, and wrapped the costume jewelry pearls around her left wrist, her “armour”, and walked into school. While putting away her books for the morning, Lauren slammed the locker shut.

“Thanks for not getting back to me last night.”

“You… you called?” Ali asked, surprised.

“I texted you twice and sent you a message on Xanga! You never responded! You are done at this school, Alison James Beckett,” Lauren snarled, a finger pointed in Ali’s face. “Your social life is finished.”

All the sudden, Ali thought it all so ludicrous that one single person thought so much of herself that she thought she could control how Ali felt about _her_ self when school relationships meant so little to her right now. A peal of laughter escaped from Ali’s mouth and that infuriated Lauren more.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Ali snorted to herself. “Lauren… I don’t go to this school to get ahead on my social life, I go here because it’s the best school I could get into without having to go to a private one. And there are much bigger problems in the world than the guy I choose to date and have sex with, which is my business, not yours. And I’m not going to do something so stupid like give up my virginity to a guy who lies to my face about being a virgin himself.”

“Jason is not a virgin-”

“Unless something happened that I don’t know about since Saturday, he is. Have a great day at school, Lauren, peace out.” She slammed her locker door shut.

“Don’t you walk away from me! I will wreck you-”

“No, you can’t wreck me. Only I can,” Ali responded. She was done letting people determine her emotions. They were hers, and hers alone to have. And she was determined to never go back to being that hysterical, confused girl with that horrible vision of that demon that had taken her mother’s form and handed her a razor blade in her dreams. “I said, ‘peace out’, Lauren. Go check yourself before you wreck yourself, idiot.”

Ali felt so much freer, having told Lauren off. She went into Mrs. Newton’s class, realizing that she couldn’t wait to finish high school and get away from all this nonsense that ruled the school. She got out her phone to tell Katie, and realized she didn’t have the energy to send the whole story over text. But, just that the first person she wanted to tell was her sister… that felt amazing. She sent Katie a text, though.

_Having an interesting day, even if the 1st period bell hasn’t even rung yet. <3 A _

She sent them, but she stopped when the phone chimed.

_What happened?_

She grinned to herself. _Tell u before al-alon._

_Ok. Have a good day. :x_

_U 2. ILY :x_

_ILY2_

* * *

Katie had stopped by the apartment after her classes to get some water bottles, apple slices, and some string cheeses for herself and Ali, and Ali welcomed them when they met at the Presbyterian church for Al-Anon.

“So what happened?” Katie asked.

“School hadn’t even started when Lauren came running at me, furious that I had ignored her texts, and she told me she was going to like, ruin me in school or something, and I started laughing at her.”

“I’m so glad. I hate that girl.”

“What? You do?”

Katie grimaced and nodded. “She was just so mean. And so rude. And I noticed her bossing you around. She just seemed really miserable and wanted to control everyone and everything around her.”

“Yeah, she’s like that. Well, she said she’d wreck me, and I realized… only I could do that to myself. I’ve done it before and… and… I don’t ever want to go there again. And I’d never let another person do that to me if I can help it,” Ali admitted.

“Oh, Ali! I’m so happy to hear that! You’re my hero!”

“ _Your_ hero?” Ali chortled. Katie had always saved the day, it had always been Ali who needed help or saving and was the helpless one, never the hero.

“I can’t admire you?” Katie scoffed. “I’m so proud of you for telling her off! She deserved it!”

Ali felt tears of happiness gather in her eyes. “But it gets better!”

“Ooh, it does?” Katie asked, biting into an apple slice, crunching. Her dark eyes  glittered with excitement at the news.

“I told her whatever’s she’s hearing, Jason admitted to me that he’s a virgin on Saturday night, and I told her, ‘peace out’ but she wouldn’t leave me alone. And I realized that high school is so stupid! I can’t wait to get out of there! I mean, school itself is important, but I don’t go to Stuyvesant _just_ to meet guys, you know? And I told Lauren that who I decide to date and lose my virginity to was none of her business. You’re right: I need to wait for someone who really cares about me and would never lie to my face. Even if it’s embarrassing for him, right? And the first person I wanted to tell when I realized it, it was you.”

Katie’s eyes shone with tears. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Ali’s tears returned to her eyes and began to spill over. “You’re my best friend. And I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

“Come on, it’s almost 3:30,” Ali said, taking her sister’s hand to walk into the church to the Al-Anon meeting.

After the opening prayer and introduction from the leader, they called everyone to share. Shawn came in late, but they had saved his seat on Katie’s other side.

When it was Ali’s turn, all eyes turned to her. She swallowed her bite of apple.

There was a new boy at Al-Anon, who introduced himself as Matthew. His mother was an alcoholic, and he had been raised by his aunt. He had started coming to Al-Anon meetings a few years ago in Scarsdale, but was now coming down to Manhattan for a semester here in the city.

“Hi my name’s Ali and I’m the child of an alcoholic.”

“Hi Ali.”

“Hi. Well, we had a really rough weekend. I think my dad’s fallen off the wagon but can’t admit it, yet. But the good news about today is I told off my best frenemy because I realized how stupid it is to have other people controlling how you see herself. And I realized I do have a best friend in my big sister. I love her a lot.”

“Thank you for sharing, Ali. That’s great news, keep coming back, Ali,” the leader said, applauding her. “I hope things keep getting better for you two.”

“It will.”

It was Katie’s turn, now. “My name’s Kate, and I’m the child of an alcoholic.”

“Hi Kate.”

“Last weekend was rough, like you heard. Dad’s told me I should leave his house if I’m going to accuse him of falling off the wagon. Immediately, he accused us about fat sluts, although that’s far from the truth of my little sister.”

“It’s not true about you either,” Ali piped up.

“But anyway, we found part-emptied gin and vodka bottles in his toilet, you know, he was hiding them there. He tried to blow up at us, divert us from being angry at him for falling off the wagon and he made up a story that this was from before he went to rehab, but neither of us believe that, but he wants us to. And that’s when he told me to move out. I guess you could say I’m being kicked out? I don’t know, he ran off to avoid us. I know he’s drinking, but he’s claiming he’s not. I can see right through him. He definitely left rehab too soon, but… I guess it’s up to him to turn things around.”

“Alcoholic parents will try to turn it around on you and pit you and your siblings against each other,” the group leader said. “When they’re caught, they’ll try every excuse in the book, and then they’ll lash out. Don’t let him divide you two.”

“I promise, we won’t. Because my sister completely kicked ass today and I’m so proud of her right now, that made my day so much better. I love that I’m her sister, it makes all this trouble with Dad worth it.”

“Katie was the first person I wanted to tell when I told that girl at school off,” Ali piped up. “And that’s when I knew she was my best friend.”

“Always best friends,” Katie added in.

“I’m proud of you girls. Keep coming back.”

* * *

That night, Dad came back home as they made dinner. He was still angry with them, but Katie and Ali were flying high on the adrenaline rush. They ignored him until he walked into the kitchen. “Ali, can we talk for a minute. Just you and me?”

“Sure.”

She went into the living room with him, and he tapped his fingers together. “I’m hearing that you girls are hanging out with a cross-dresser. I want to make it clear that I raised the both of you better than to hang around freaks. Katie’s off doing whatever she wants and she’s out of control, but you, on the otherhand, you’re more sensible.”

Ali was confused for a moment, and then she realized he was talking about Shawn. “Shawn? No, Daddy, he’s my sponsor in Al-Anon. He’s just a drag queen at night.”

“Sweetheart, you’re drinking?” he asked, concerned.

“No, Al-Anon is a support group for the children of alcoholics-”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. They have a support group for everything, don’t they?” her father said, rolling his eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m fine. We’re fine. I think Katie is instigating this stuff just to milk a little extra money out of me. That’s why she’s trying to convince you to leave me. I think Katie’s going to drop you and start being nasty to you again if you move out with her, honey.”

Ali was stunned for a moment. “Oh…”

“Sweetheart, she’s being really sweet to you and manipulative. Once she gets what she wants, she’ll throw you away.”

This felt like a punch to the stomach. “No, Dad, Katie wouldn’t do that to me,” Ali said, coming to her senses. This was just as the group leader had warned her: Dad was trying to pit them against each other to divert attention from his drinking.

“Alison, I don’t think our relationship’s going to survive if you chose Katie over me. She’s lying. I think she planted those bottles in the toilet for you to find-”

“No, she didn’t- she wouldn’t-”

“She did. She’s getting so narcissistic, she’s attacking me. She’s trying to be your best friend right now, but the moment she doesn’t need you-”

“Dad, stop it!” Ali shouted. “I don’t believe you.”

“Ali? Everything okay?” Katie called, coming out of the kitchen.

“Katie, are you eavesdropping on our private conversation?”

“No, but you’ve got her shouting. Are you even listening to what she’s saying?”

For a moment, Ali had doubted Katie’s intentions, and she felt terribly guilty. And then, she was enraged that her father had even tried to make her doubt her sister. “No, he’s too busy trying to turn me against you!”

She saw angry tears rush to her sister’s eyes. “Dad, what were you saying?”

Her father’s face turned red and a vein throbbed. “I didn’t say any-”

“He just told me you planted the liquor bottles in his toilet to turn me against him!”

Katie’s face reflected her father’s for a moment, and the tears spilled over. “Dad, how could you? How could do that to us? You pitted us against each other for years after Mom died, and we’re coming together as best friends like sisters should, and then you pull this? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t love us at all! Why would you want us to _not_ get along? Nevermind, I know you’re just trying to create a distraction from your drinking!”

“I don’t drink any more!”

“Oh yeah?” Katie snorted, walking out of the room, towards the bedrooms. She came back with the wallet out of her father’s work pants. “Let’s see what we find in your wallet, Dad!” She opened it up and receipts snowed out.

“Don’t you dare! That’s mine!” He tried to snatch it out of her hands, but Ali blocked him, throwing her body in the way. “You never go through a man’s-”

“Son of a bitch, look at this,” Katie cried, holding up a receipt. “Three martinis at Maestro’s last Tuesday! And this? BOGO vodka tonics at Maurice’s-”

Her father managed to push past Ali, and snatched the wallet out of Katie’s hand. “You little bitch, get out of my house-”

“Don’t you call her that!” Ali shrieked. “How dare you, you’re supposed to be our father-”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Alison!” Dad bellowed in her face.

“She’s _talking_ , you bastard-”

His hand flew across Katie’s face before she could finish her sentence, and her whole upper body flew to the side, but she rebounded and grabbed the wrist of his offending hand and twisted it backward, and he yelped out.

“You got me mad you caught me off guard,” Katie said in a low, terrifying voice, “but trust me, that’s the last time you’ll ever hit me _or_ Ali ever again.” She let him go.

“Get out of my house,” her father responded in the same, dark, gravelly voice.

“Gladly. Ali’s coming with me.”

“The hell she is. I’ll call the cops.”

“Good luck with that, you just assaulted me with a witness are you sure you want to call the cops? Ali, come on, go pack your bag, we’re going to Shawn’s.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t tell the cops you hit her,” Ali warned, wagging a finger at her father.

“You’re just doing this for money!” Dad shouted after them. “You’re a selfish little slut, Katherine! A bedraggled little whore!”

Katie followed Ali into her room and grabbed her into a hug. “Just you and me, spirit and guts against the world.”

Ali finally broke down into tears. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Spirit and guts. As long as we’re best friends.”

“Forever. I promise.” Katie let her go and go her dance duffle bag out of the closet. “Come on, I know this isn’t a lot of time-”

“But we’re probably never going to come back?”

Katie’s eyes hit the floor. “Probably not. I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s hurry.”

Ali began to pack her bag, trying to figure out what she was going to take with her and what she wouldn’t. Her heart broke when she realized she couldn’t stuff her pointe slippers and the quilt she made with Mom into the bag and would have to leave them behind. Most of her clothes and shoes couldn’t go with her, either, just a few outfits, and she’d have to get creative to cover up that she was now homeless. She swallowed.

_Homeless._

Homeless before she was even eighteen. Was she really ready to leave her father’s house? Was she really ready for the world? She grabbed her fingerless gloves and pearl bracelet Shawn had given her and put them on. She felt like she had a little armour, now.

But she’d have Katie. Katie could help her pull through. They’d survive together.

Fresh tears began falling down her cheeks, and Katie came into the room with their coats. “Are you ready?”  
“I’m ready,” Ali said, taking her coat. This was going to be the defining moment of her life, she knew. She had to be strong, she couldn’t come back to her father’s care again. Ever. How had it come to this?

They stepped out of Ali’s room, blocked by their father, who wasn’t even bothering to hide it anymore: he had a glass of bourbon on the rocks in his hand. “So you’re really calling my bluff?” he sneered. Ali could hear the beginnings of the dreaded slurring in the back of his voice. “I can’t wait to see how you two ungrateful little bitches get your asses handed to you by the big, bad city when I won’t be there to protect you. I’m sorry I even had you two! Biggest damn mistake of my life!”

Katie’s hand encircled Ali’s elbow and she pulled Ali away. Ali’s heart broke at her father’s cruel words.

“Don’t listen to him,” Katie murmured as they walked out the door.

Ali was terrified, but she had Katie to lead. She had to trust with her gut instinct. And her spirit.

Spirit and guts were being put to the test. They had to pass, or it was a no-go.


	14. Put to the Test

The next morning, Jason sent her four texts begging her to reconsider, and then five calling her a virgin with bad taste, that he’d never have sex with her and he’d ruin her.

 _I’ll be happy to tell everybody that you finished before I even had my clothes off & that’s why I’m still a virgin, _she texted back.

There was nothing more from Jason for the day. But when Ali got back from CYO, there was a text from Lauren.

_I can’t believe you’ve messed things up so bad with Jason. How could you screw him over like that? Just to get even with me?_

Ali rolled her eyes.

“It’s all about you, isn’t it, Lauren?” she muttered to herself. Instead of sending her a response, Ali considered how stupid high school was. She was ready to leave.

She had to pee, but her bathroom had a toilet that wasn’t flushing. She sneaked into her father’s bathroom and went to the bathroom, but the toilet didn’t flush.

She figured the chain wasn’t connected, by the sound of it, and she opened the lid to the holding tank, only to find the surprise of a lifetime: a bottle of gin and another of vodka in the water.

Ali stood there in shock: the bottles had been drunk from when she pulled them out to look at them. Dad was the only one that used this bathroom. He was hiding alcohol? She was furious; he had lied to her. He had told her he was never drinking again. He had had a long conversation with Ali and Katie that he wasn’t going to drink ever again. Ali remembered it, and realized it had been a lecture, he hadn’t listen to a damn thing Alison had said.

She put them bottles back and washed her hands, trying to make it look like she hadn’t been there. In her bedroom, she sent a text to Katie about what she had found.

_I just went to pee in Dad’s bathroom, and I found two bottles of alcohol in the toilet. Part-drunk. Call me when you get out of sparring practice. <3 A _

She sent the message and left a message on her therapist’s line about this find. She wanted someone to talk to, so she called their Al-Alon sponsor, Shawn.

“Hey, Ali, what’s going on?” Shawn asked.

“Well… I just found two partially-drunk bottles of liquor in my dad’s bathroom. He was hiding them in the toilet.”

“He… he was?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “I think he’s going really far to hide it.”

“I think you and your sister need to confront him immediately.”

“But- what do I say? ‘Hey, I was going through your bathroom-’”

“Yes, that’s exactly what you say,” he said. “Yeah, you were in his bathroom, but he’s not really trustworthy. He shouldn’t have anything to hide. He just got out of rehab, you’re still working on trusting him.”

“Oh God…”

“Look, just having those in his bathroom says everything. He’s suspect. And part of recovery is falling off the wagon a few times. But you don’t need to trust him.” The link beeped. Ali checked, and saw that it was Katie.

“That’s my sister, I gotta go. I’ll call you in the morning before school, okay?”

“Okay, girl. Talk to you soon.”

“Alright, bye.” She hit the send button on her phone. “Katie?”

“Ali, you found something?”

“I did.”

“Look, I’m on my way home, don’t do anything.”

“I called my therapist and Shawn.”

“Good. You found empty bottles in the toilet bowl?”

“No, I found… two bottles in the tank over the toilet. They were part full.”

“Okay, so it was above the toilet?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do with them?”

“I left them in there and Shawn says we need to confront him immediately, but I’m scared to.”

“I’ll be there, in a minute okay?”

“Alright. Get here soon.”

“On my way.”

The door to the apartment opened. The phone had gone dead.

“Dad?” Ali called.

“Yeah, I’m home,” her father called back.

She opened the door to her room and he was hanging up his coat.

“Dad…” She didn’t know what to say.

“Everything alright, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ali replied, although it definitely was not.

She climbed into her bed in her room, silent, but unable to close her eyes.

Fifteen minutes later, Katie came into the apartment, and went straight for Ali’s room.

“Are you sure it was the real thing?” Katie whispered.

“I think so. I think. I don’t know,” Ali whispered.

“I want to see it for myself,” she whispered. “I called Shawn on the way home, and he wants to meet us for coffee really early tomorrow morning. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah, I am,” Ali said. “How early?”

“He said six. Are you up for getting up at five-thirty?”

Ali nodded.

“I’ll wake you up.”

“Alright.”

“I promise, we’re not going to turn on each other again, okay?”

Ali nodded.

“You promise, too?’

“I promise.”

* * *

The next morning, Katie woke Ali up at five-thirty, although Ali wished she had another half hour to sleep. They dressed for the day and left the house right as they heard their father’s alarm. They left a full pot of hot coffee for him and a note that they were leaving early for school projects.

The sun wasn’t out, but the city was coming alive. They found the local Dean and Deluca in their neighborhood, where Shawn was waiting. He had his make-up washed off and was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans under his winter coat.

“Hi, girls,” Shawn said, greeting them both with a hug. “I’ll get your coffees.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Katie said.

“I did a show last night,” he said. “That’s fine. Come on, let’s order.”

They bought their coffees and some croissants, and sat down in a private corner of the shop.

“It was Ali who found it,” Katie said. “I sneaked into Dad’s bathroom really early this morning and I saw it for myself. That was real alcohol in his toilet. He’s hiding it. But I don’t know if he’s drinking again.”

“My bet is, he’s drinking again. He’s too new out of rehab to not have fallen off the wagon. Don’t believe him if he tells you that this is old and he forgot about those bottles, he’s full of _kaka_.”

“We lived in the master bedroom for a while when he was in rehab,” Ali said. “Those bottles weren’t in the toilet last fall.”

“Good, tell him that. Do you two need me there when you confront him?”

“I think we will,” Katie said.

“I feel kind of stupid, but do we need to call his sponsor?”

“No, that’s for him to do. But the two of you need to stay strong. The first thing he’s going to do is he’ll try to pit you two against each other. He’ll play every trick in the book, be prepared for that. You two really need to stick together and stick it to him. Got it?”

Ali glanced at Katie, who looked at her and nodded back.

“I want you both to confront him tonight. I’ll cancel my show-”

“No!” Katie cried. “No, that’s your income-”

“Girls, no. You need support tonight.”

“We can do this. It’s two against one,” Katie said.

“I know. Ali, don’t you be afraid to tell him that you found the alcohol and don’t want him drinking,” Shawn said. “Girls, this is going to be really hard. Present a united front.”

They considered what they need to do, wrote out a game plan and things to say and point out in the next hour before going their separate ways for the day.

“You want me to hold onto this?” Katie asked, putting the little note pad they had used to make notes.

“Please. I don’t want that falling into the wrong hands at school.”

“Alright. Have a good day at school.”

“You too.”

They hugged, hard. Ali knew she’d need it today.

“I want a hug, too,” Shawn said.

After a big hug, Shawn and Katie left and Ali worked on a little homework. By seven-thirty, she got a refill and went on to catch the Metro to school.

Upon arriving at her locker, Lauren suddenly appeared. “You’ve really messed up,” Lauren said.

“Wait, what?” Ali asked, trying to remember.

“I handed you Jason Tuttle on a platter. And you messed it up with him. Are you stupid or something?”

Ali realized she was bringing up Jason. Why couldn’t Jason’s crap be the biggest thing in her life? Why couldn’t she have friends that understood that her father was a giant mess? She hid her suicide attempt all the time and it didn’t feel good to be faking that everything was alright. “Look, Lauren, I love that you want me to have a boyfriend, but sometimes there are bigger things going on in our lives-”

“It’s the most important thing!” Lauren snapped. “You really are stupid, you know!”

Lauren stormed away, but all Ali could think about what her father was going through.

She sent Katie a quick message that Lauren was being stupid as hell and making her mad about Jason, when that was the last thing on her mind.

_If u need me 2 go down 2 Stuy & set her stupid ass str8, I will!!! _

Ali considered it. _U might have to! T2U2nite._

Jason avoided her, and Ali knew it was officially over when she heard the first rumor at lunch about how she had had sex with him right away and had been terrible in bed. Ali’s cheeks burned but she got a text from her sister, asking how the day was going. _Jason’s already talking crap about me. What a liar._

_U know what 2 do.. If we have 2 get Dad back N2 rehab, U can take a day or 2 off from school. <3 K _

Ali tried to take Katie’s support with her when she had to eat lunch in the quad, not the cafeteria, freezing outdoors. Watching the clock in her last two classes felt like torture, with all the gossiping going on. It felt like heaven when she got to leave school, finally, but wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation tonight.

Katie was home, and was trying to make cookies from the take-and-break frozen ones to make Ali feel better.

“You had a shit day at school?” she asked. “Sorry, I swore.”

“A total shit day,” Ali agreed.

“So bad, you’re swearing?”

“Yeah,” Ali muttered.

“We’re going to be okay,” Katie said.

“Only if you agree to learn how to make Mom’s oatmeal raisin cookies instead of this pre-packaged crap.”

“Oh, you’re a complete ass, you know that?”

Ali laughed, finally. “I am.”

“Hmm,” Katie said, digging in the recipe box. “Is this the one?”

“Yes, that’s the cookie recipe!” Ali cried, recognizing the dog-earred recipe card. “Let’s make those tonight! Do we have the molasses?”

“We do, actually!”

As they made dinner, their father finally walked in the door.

“Hey girls, I’m home!”

“Dad, we’ve got dinner ready, whenever you’re ready,” Katie said.

“Let me change out of my work clothes and we can start, alright? Girls, can either one of you get me a club soda?”

“Sure,” Ali said, getting the plates down from the cabinet. Dad disappeared into his room. “I can’t believe this,” Ali whispered to Katie. “We’re not going to do this over dinner, are we?”

Katie paused. “Let’s just play it by ear. Don’t be scared, I’m here.”

As they sat down to a dinner of meatloaf, Katie brought it up. “Dad, we’re kind of concerned about something. Ali found a bottle of gin and a bottle of vodka in your bathroom toilet.”

Their father’s eyes blazed. “Ali, you were using my bathroom?”

“That’s not a crime,” Ali said.

“You know I need my privacy,” he glared down at her.

Ali shrank back: she didn’t like being glared at like this.

“Dad, this is a problem-”

“I’ll say! What ever happened to privacy? Alison, you have your own bathroom, why were you going through mine? You have your own, I made sure of that-”

“Dad,” Katie’s voice shot out. She looked dangerous with her glare. “It’s a big deal what we found. I checked myself. Let me go get them-”

“It’s nothing,” her father interrupted.

“Dad,” Ali began. “If you’re falling off the boat, you know this is normal with rehab-”

“I haven’t checked the toilet in my bathroom since I went to Vermont, you can’t say I haven’t been the best father-”

“Dad, Ali was talking to you,” Katie shot out. “Listen.”

“I’m happy to give over that alcohol to the two of you to dispose of as you please,” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t drink anymore.”

“Okay, let’s put that to the test. Ali, go and get the liquor from the toilet.”

Ali stood up and went straight to the bathroom and found the two bottles. She got them out, and there was less in each one than what she found on Sunday. She sighed in frustration, drying them off, and took them to the kitchen. “Dad, you’ve been drinking from these,” Ali announced.

“This is not a big deal. I’m happy to give these up-”

“Will you tell your sponsor in AA that?” Katie said. Like always, Ali was invisible. “Ali’s right, these had a lot more in them on Sunday.”

“I don’t recognize these,” Dad said.

“Dad, you do too!” Ali cried.

“This is a non-issue, those are just bottles I forgot about in rehab-”

“Dad, no!” Ali insisted.

“Dad, we moved into the master bedroom when you were in rehab, those weren’t there before,” Katie insisted.

“Yes, they were! You just missed them,” Dad insisted.

“They were not!” Ali cried. “I would have emptied them out when you were in rehab-”

“You need to learn the importance of privacy, Ali,” Dad over-shouted her, his face turning red.

“Dad, stop it!” Katie shouted. “Ali’s talking to you! You need to listen!”

“She’s not saying anything I need to listen to!”

“Yes, she is!” Katie shouted back.

“Look, I‘ll go and pour these down the drain, girls! Would I do that if I was falling off the wagon?”

“Yes, you would!” Katie shouted. “We can see right through you! You are so full of shi- crap, Dad! Everybody in this room knows it, including you!”

“If you _know_ it, why don’t you move out, Katie? Go do whatever you want-”

“No, I’m not leaving Ali! I’ll take her with me!”

“I’m her legal guardian. Your custody of her is over, young lady, do you understand?” he snapped, snatching up the bottles to take to the kitchen sink. “You couldn’t discipline Ali to save your life, either-”

“What’s there to discipline?” Katie snorted. “She’s practically an adult because you haven’t acted like a parent-”

“How dare you say I haven’t acted like a parent when I went to rehab to be a better father-”

“You left her alone for three weeks last summer in the big city so you could drink your life away!”

“I went to rehab, I don’t drink anymore!”

“You think that didn’t affect her? She had to quit dance and guard because you were screwing up so bad, and you’re not even trying to make it up to her-”

“What’s done is done!”

“You’re avoiding apologizing? Yeah, you’re not sorry! It’s all lip service from you!” Katie shouted.

“See this? I’m pouring out these forgotten bottles you can’t let go of-”

“‘Forgotten’ my ass!” Katie shouted over him, storming out of the kitchen.

“I’m going to go spend the night on the couch in my office, you two just can’t stop looking for something to incriminate me!” he shouted, coming out of the kitchen to point at them both. “You need somebody to blame for all your problems and short-comings-”

“Don’t you run away-” Katie started, spinning on her heels.

“I’m not! I need some time to calm down at these _litigious_ accusations-”

“Well, at least you can use big words, still,” Katie muttered.

“Why don’t you two take your fat, promiscuous asses to Al-Anon-”

“Dad!” Ali shouted, standing up, horrified that her father, but he continued shouting. “She’s not fat and she’s not a slut, how dare you call us names?”

“You’re not listening to anybody, you’ve got to overtalk both of us instead of _listen_!” Katie shouted. “Why don’t you go, we both know you’re not going to sleep on the couch, just go get trashed at the bar, just a lonely old widower with a bottle-” Katie’s hand found Ali’s, “who abandons his own kids because he can’t be honest with them!”

“I am being honest, goddamnit!” Dad shouted back. “I’m getting my things and _leaving_! Until you two can accept a logical explanation-”

“It’s not logical because it’s not the truth!” Katie shouted. “Get out!”

“Get out? _I_ pay the rent on this apartment. You go find your own! And you’re only taking Ali over my dead body!”

“I will!” Katie shouted. “Bite me,” she mumbled under her breath.

Ali realized she was holding her own breath, and was seeing spots in her vision. She knew she’d sob if she tried to breathe, but her knees almost buckled beneath her, and she gulped in air, her sob obvious. Katie grabbed her sister and held her tightly, pressing her face into her chest.

“He’s drinking again, we both know it. You’re not wrong, Ali. No matter what he does, you’re not wrong, okay?”

Their father stormed into the room with his gym bag packed. “You can reach me on my _office phone_ if you’d like to apologize,” he snarled, pointing. “Otherwise, you can get a newspaper, Katie, and start searching for an apartment. You’re graduating in May, you know.”

“Gladly! A two-bedroom.”

“Yeah right,” he snorted, slamming the door.

“Look,” Katie said gently to Ali. “I’m not leaving you here with him. I’ll file a custody appeal-”

“Do you think we can make it that long?”

“When he drinks, he won’t notice you’re gone. He just wants me out of the way because he thinks you’ll let it slide if he started drinking again.”

“How are you going to rent a two-bedroom apartment, Katie?” Ali whimpered. “This is one of the most expensive cities in America!”

“I’ll figure out a way! Don’t let him scare you. Okay, so what if you have to spend the rest of your senior year in a bug-ridden studio in Brooklyn, but you’ll be with me. We’ll be together and away from him. We said our new motto was _spirit and guts_ , because we’re brave and we have each other. Remember?”

Ali wiped her tears with her fingers.

“Don’t be scared of him! We can do so much more when we’re united against him.”

“United against his drinking, sure,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to be against Dad.”

“You’re right. We’re not against him, we’re just against this… _disease_ that’s fooling him into acting like an... _asshole._ I’m sorry to use that word, I know you hate it. But I will never let him attack you like that-”

“But he attacked you, too.”

Katie’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you for sticking up for me. For both of us.”

“Do you promise to always be there? Especially when Dad’s acting up?”

“I’m your sister, you don’t have to ask. You’ve been my best friend since we made up in October, and I’m dead serious about taking you away from him. And you’re going to be eighteen in June, you’ll stay with me once you have your birthday. Promise me that no matter what Dad says or offers you, you’ll ignore it, and get a job to move in with me?”

“But… I wanted to go to college…”

“You will. We’ll take Dad’s signature off your college savings account. But we have to be really careful so he doesn’t try to prevent us from doing it. Don’t worry about these things. Even if he does, we’ll take out student loans for you, we’ll find a school that’ll take you on as a work-study student... We’ll work it out.”

“It’s not fair,” Ali grumbled, sitting down on the couch. “God, it’s not fair.”

“I know,” Katie said, sitting down next to her.

“It’s not fair that you had to transfer back to New York from Stanford. And it’s not fair that you’re going to have to share your first apartment with your little sister. I’m going to get in the way so much.”

“Yeah, you definitely will.”

Ali’s head shot up to gasp, and she saw Katie’s face. She was smirking, despite her sad expression.

Katie’s hand slid over Ali’s. “But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


	15. Keeping Up Appearances

The next morning they left early to meet with Shawn and tell him what had happened. Shawn was supportive and encouraged them for the way that they had handle things. “You did the right thing,” he promised. “Your dad’s drinking again. I promise you, you’re both right: he’s completely full of crap. If he wasn’t, he’d have apologized for you finding those bottles, instead of pretending they were forgotten. He knows you both know, the only person he’s lying to is himself.”

“I think he’s serious about kicking me out,” Katie added.

“Girl, don’t worry. I’ve got the hookup,” Shawn promised. “And you can stay with me until you get into your own place.”

“And I think… I don’t want Ali in there with him. If I move out, I’m determined to take her with me. She’s not safe in my father’s house until he really gets his act together.”

“Katie, I know it’s tempting to be tough on him. And the way he’s acting, you probably think he deserves it. But trust me, he hates himself. He’s just trying to hold onto Ali to prove to himself he’s a good dad, when he really doubts it for himself.”

“But… that means… he _needs_ me,” Ali said, feeling uneasy.

“He does, but that’s part of what you have to do: set firm boundaries to show him he can’t have you in his life until he stops drinking. And treats you like a person, not an object. I listen to what you tell me about him, and I understand his self-hate.”

“I think he thinks a lot of himself,” Ali muttered.

“He does,” Katie said. “I sometimes think he blames himself for Mom’s death, that if he had done something different, she’d be alive. He didn’t protect her.”

“That’s part of survivor’s guilt, I think. It’s almost seven-fifteen, come on, don’t you have class, Ali? Let’s go.”

He took the two of them to drop Ali off at Stuyvesant, and gave Katie a ride to her Advanced Sociology eight o’clock class in his 1970s VW bug. Ali pulled on her long, fingerless gloves as she got out of the car, and wrapped the costume jewelry pearls around her left wrist, her “armour”, and walked into school. While putting away her books for the morning, Lauren slammed the locker shut.

“Thanks for not getting back to me last night.”

“You… you called?” Ali asked, surprised.

“I texted you twice and sent you a message on Xanga! You never responded! You are done at this school, Alison James Beckett,” Lauren snarled, a finger pointed in Ali’s face. “Your social life is finished.”

All the sudden, Ali thought it all so ludicrous that one single person thought so much of herself that she thought she could control how Ali felt about _her_ self when school relationships meant so little to her right now. A peal of laughter escaped from Ali’s mouth and that infuriated Lauren more.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Ali snorted to herself. “Lauren… I don’t go to this school to get ahead on my social life, I go here because it’s the best school I could get into without having to go to a private one. And there are much bigger problems in the world than the guy I choose to date and have sex with, which is my business, not yours. And I’m not going to do something so stupid like give up my virginity to a guy who lies to my face about being a virgin himself.”

“Jason is not a virgin-”

“Unless something happened that I don’t know about since Saturday, he is. Have a great day at school, Lauren, peace out.” She slammed her locker door shut.

“Don’t you walk away from me! I will wreck you-”

“No, you can’t wreck me. Only I can,” Ali responded. She was done letting people determine her emotions. They were hers, and hers alone to have. And she was determined to never go back to being that hysterical, confused girl with that horrible vision of that demon that had taken her mother’s form and handed her a razor blade in her dreams. “I said, ‘peace out’, Lauren. Go check yourself before you wreck yourself, idiot.”

Ali felt so much freer, having told Lauren off. She went into Mrs. Newton’s class, realizing that she couldn’t wait to finish high school and get away from all this nonsense that ruled the school. She got out her phone to tell Katie, and realized she didn’t have the energy to send the whole story over text. But, just that the first person she wanted to tell was her sister… that felt amazing. She sent Katie a text, though.

_Having an interesting day, even if the 1st period bell hasn’t even rung yet. <3 A _

She sent them, but she stopped when the phone chimed.

_What happened?_

She grinned to herself. _Tell u before al-alon._

_Ok. Have a good day. :x_

_U 2. ILY :x_

_ILY2_

* * *

Katie had stopped by the apartment after her classes to get some water bottles, apple slices, and some string cheeses for herself and Ali, and Ali welcomed them when they met at the Presbyterian church for Al-Anon.

“So what happened?” Katie asked.

“School hadn’t even started when Lauren came running at me, furious that I had ignored her texts, and she told me she was going to like, ruin me in school or something, and I started laughing at her.”

“I’m so glad. I hate that girl.”

“What? You do?”

Katie grimaced and nodded. “She was just so mean. And so rude. And I noticed her bossing you around. She just seemed really miserable and wanted to control everyone and everything around her.”

“Yeah, she’s like that. Well, she said she’d wreck me, and I realized… only I could do that to myself. I’ve done it before and… and… I don’t ever want to go there again. And I’d never let another person do that to me if I can help it,” Ali admitted.

“Oh, Ali! I’m so happy to hear that! You’re my hero!”

“ _Your_ hero?” Ali chortled. Katie had always saved the day, it had always been Ali who needed help or saving and was the helpless one, never the hero.

“I can’t admire you?” Katie scoffed. “I’m so proud of you for telling her off! She deserved it!”

Ali felt tears of happiness gather in her eyes. “But it gets better!”

“Ooh, it does?” Katie asked, biting into an apple slice, crunching. Her dark eyes  glittered with excitement at the news.

“I told her whatever’s she’s hearing, Jason admitted to me that he’s a virgin on Saturday night, and I told her, ‘peace out’ but she wouldn’t leave me alone. And I realized that high school is so stupid! I can’t wait to get out of there! I mean, school itself is important, but I don’t go to Stuyvesant _just_ to meet guys, you know? And I told Lauren that who I decide to date and lose my virginity to was none of her business. You’re right: I need to wait for someone who really cares about me and would never lie to my face. Even if it’s embarrassing for him, right? And the first person I wanted to tell when I realized it, it was you.”

Katie’s eyes shone with tears. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Ali’s tears returned to her eyes and began to spill over. “You’re my best friend, you weren't wrong. And I love you so much.”

“I love you too. I'm so glad you listened to me about this!”

“Come on, it’s almost 3:30,” Ali said, taking her sister’s hand to walk into the church to the Al-Anon meeting.

After the opening prayer and introduction from the leader, they called everyone to share. Shawn came in late, but they had saved his seat on Katie’s other side.

When it was Ali’s turn, all eyes turned to her. She swallowed her bite of apple.

There was a new boy at Al-Anon, who introduced himself as Matthew. His mother was an alcoholic, and he had been raised by his aunt. He had started coming to Al-Anon meetings a few years ago in Scarsdale, but was now coming down to Manhattan for a semester here in the city.

“Hi my name’s Ali and I’m the child of an alcoholic.”

“Hi Ali.”

“Hi. Well, we had a really rough weekend. I think my dad’s fallen off the wagon but can’t admit it, yet. But the good news about today is I told off my best frenemy because I realized how stupid it is to have other people controlling how you see herself. And I realized I do have a best friend in my big sister. I love her a lot.”

“Thank you for sharing, Ali. That’s great news, keep coming back, Ali,” the leader said, applauding her. “I hope things keep getting better for you two.”

“It will.”

It was Katie’s turn, now. “My name’s Kate, and I’m the child of an alcoholic.”

“Hi Kate.”

“Last weekend was rough, like you heard. Dad’s told me I should leave his house if I’m going to accuse him of falling off the wagon. Immediately, he accused us about fat sluts, although that’s far from the truth of my little sister.”

“It’s not true about you either,” Ali piped up.

“But anyway, we found partially-emptied gin and vodka bottles in his toilet, you know, he was hiding them there. He tried to blow up at us, divert us from being angry at him for falling off the wagon and he made up a story that this was from before he went to rehab, but neither of us believe that, but he wants us to. And that’s when he told me to move out. I guess you could say I’m being kicked out? I don’t know, he ran off to avoid us. I know he’s drinking, but he’s claiming he’s not. I can see right through him. He definitely left rehab too soon, but… I guess it’s up to him to turn things around.”

“Alcoholic parents will try to turn it around on you and pit you and your siblings against each other,” the group leader said. “When they’re caught, they’ll try every excuse in the book, and then they’ll lash out. Don’t let him divide you two.”

“I promise, we won’t. Because my sister completely kicked ass today and I’m so proud of her right now, that made my day so much better. I love that I’m her sister, it makes all this trouble with Dad worth it.”

“Katie was the first person I wanted to tell when I told that girl at school off,” Ali piped up. “And that’s when I knew she was my best friend.”

“ _Always_ best friends,” Katie added in.

“I’m proud of you girls. Keep coming back.”

* * *

That night, Dad came back home as they made dinner. He was still angry with them, but Katie and Ali were flying high on the adrenaline rush. They ignored him until he walked into the kitchen. “Ali, can we talk for a minute. Just you and me?”

“Sure.”

She went into the living room with him, and he tapped his fingers together. “I’m hearing that you girls are hanging out with a cross-dresser. I want to make it clear that I raised the both of you better than to hang around freaks. Katie’s off doing whatever she wants and she’s out of control, but you, on the other hand, you’re more sensible.”

Ali was confused for a moment, and then she realized he was talking about Shawn. “Shawn? No, Daddy, he’s my sponsor in Al-Anon. He’s just a drag queen at night.”

“Sweetheart, you’re drinking?” he asked, concerned.

“No, Al-Anon is a support group for the children of alcoholics-”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. They have a support group for everything, don’t they?” her father said, rolling his eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m fine. We’re fine. I think Katie is instigating this stuff just to milk a little extra money out of me. That’s why she’s trying to convince you to leave me. I think Katie’s going to drop you and start being nasty to you again if you move out with her, honey.”

Ali was stunned for a moment. “Oh…”

“Sweetheart, she’s being really sweet to you and manipulative. Once she gets what she wants, she’ll throw you away.”

This felt like a punch to the stomach. “No, Dad, Katie wouldn’t do that to me,” Ali said, coming to her senses. This was just as the group leader had warned her: Dad was trying to pit them against each other to divert attention from his drinking.

“Alison, I don’t think our relationship’s going to survive if you choose Katie over me. She’s lying. I think she planted those bottles in the toilet for you to find-”

“No, she didn’t- she wouldn’t-”

“She did. She’s getting so narcissistic, she’s attacking me. She’s trying to be your best friend right now, but the moment she doesn’t need you-”

“Dad, stop it!” Ali shouted. “I don’t believe you.”

“Ali? Everything okay?” Katie called, coming out of the kitchen.

“Katie, are you eavesdropping on our private conversation?” her father asked, trying to sound aghast.

“No, but you’ve got her shouting. Are you even listening to what she’s saying?”

For a moment, Ali had doubted Katie’s intentions, and she felt terribly guilty. And then, she was enraged that her father had even tried to make her doubt her sister. “No, he’s too busy trying to turn me against you!”

She saw angry tears rush to her sister’s eyes and her arms crossed. “Dad, what were you saying?”

Her father’s face turned red and a vein throbbed. “I didn’t say any-”

“He just told me you planted the liquor bottles in his toilet to turn me against him!”

Katie’s face reflected her father’s for a moment, and the tears spilled over. “Dad, how could you? How could do that to us? You pitted us against each other for years after Mom died, and we’re coming together as best friends like sisters should be, and then you pull this? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t love us at all! Why would you want us to _not_ to get along? Nevermind, I know you’re just trying to create a distraction from your drinking!”

“I don’t drink any more!”

“Oh yeah?” Katie snorted, walking out of the room, towards the bedrooms. She came back with the wallet out of her father’s work pants. “Let’s see what we find in your wallet, Dad!” She opened it up and receipts snowed out.

“Don’t you dare! That’s mine!” He tried to snatch it out of her hands, but Ali blocked him, throwing her body in the way. “You never go through a man’s wallet-”

“Son of a bitch, look at this,” Katie cried, holding up a receipt. “Two martinis at Maestro’s last Tuesday! And this? BOGO vodka tonics at Maurice’s-”

Her father managed to push past Ali, and snatched the wallet out of Katie’s hand. “You little bitch, get out of my house-”

“Don’t you call her that!” Ali shrieked. “How dare you, you’re supposed to be our father-”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Alison!” Dad bellowed in her face.

“She’s _talking_ , you bastard-”

His hand flew across Katie’s face before she could finish her sentence, and her whole upper body flew to the side, but she rebounded and grabbed the wrist of his offending hand and twisted it backward, and he yelped out.

“You got me mad you caught me off guard,” Katie said in a low, terrifying voice, “but trust me, that’s the last time you’ll ever hit me _or_ Ali ever again.” She let him go.

“Get out of my house,” her father responded in the same, dark, gravelly voice.

“Gladly. Until you quit drinking. Ali’s coming with me.”

“The hell she is. I’ll call the cops.”

“Good luck with that, you just assaulted me with a witness are you sure you want to call the cops? Ali, come on, go pack your bag, we’re going to Shawn’s.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t tell the cops you just hit her,” Ali warned, wagging a finger at her father.

“You’re just doing this for money!” Dad shouted after them. “You’re a selfish little slut, Katherine! A bedraggled little whore!”

"Don't listen to him," Katie followed Ali into her room and grabbed her into a hug. “Just you and me, spirit and guts against the world.”

Ali finally broke down into tears. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Spirit and guts. As long as we’re best friends.”

“Forever. I promise.” Katie let her go and go her dance duffle bag out of the closet. “Come on, I know this isn’t a lot of time-”

“But we’re probably never going to come back?”

Katie’s eyes hit the floor. “Probably not. I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s hurry.”

Ali began to pack her bag, trying to figure out what she was going to take with her and what she wouldn’t. Her heart broke when she realized she couldn’t stuff her pointe slippers and the quilt she made with Mom into the bag and would have to leave them behind. Most of her clothes and shoes couldn’t go with her, either, just a few outfits, and she’d have to get creative to cover up that she was now homeless.

She swallowed.

_Homeless._

Homeless before she was even eighteen. Was she really ready to leave her father’s house? Was she really ready for the world? She grabbed her fingerless gloves and pearl bracelet Shawn had given her and put them on. She felt like she had a little armor, now.

But she’d have Katie. Katie could help her pull through. They’d survive together.

Fresh tears began falling down her cheeks, and Katie came into the room with their coats. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” Ali said, taking her coat. This was going to be the defining moment of her life, she knew. She had to be strong, she couldn’t come back to her father’s care again. Ever. How had it come to this?

They stepped out of Ali’s room, blocked by their father, who wasn’t even bothering to hide it anymore: he had a glass of bourbon on the rocks in his hand.

 _Where had he hidden the bourbon? Nevermind,_ Ali thought.

“So you’re really calling my bluff?” he sneered. Ali could hear the beginnings of the dreaded slurring in the back of his voice. “I can’t wait to see how you two ungrateful little bitches get your asses handed to you by the big, bad city when I won’t be there to protect you. I’m sorry I even had you two! Biggest damn mistake of my life!”

Katie’s hand encircled Ali’s elbow and she pulled Ali away. Ali’s heart broke at her father’s cruel words.

“Don’t listen to him,” Katie murmured as they walked out the door.

Ali was terrified, but she had Katie to lead. She had to trust with her gut instinct. And her spirit.

Spirit and guts were being put to the test. They had to pass, or it was a no-go.


	16. Numb

They arrived at Shawn’s little one bedroom apartment in the Meat Packing District off the metro. Ali was surprised they weren’t stolen from, carrying such huge bags so late at night.

Shawn didn’t say hello, but opened the door, looking destroyed under his drag make-up. He immediately hugged and kissed both of them. “I’m so sorry, my girls. I’m so, so sorry. Come in, I’m going to order some take-out and y’all can go unpack in the bedroom. I just changed the sheets for you and there’s fresh towels laid out-”

“We’re not taking your room, Shawn,” Ali said.

“My princesses, Queen Fifi Brewster wouldn’t dare let her guests sleep on the couch! Now you two go unpack and wash your faces and try to ignore the tranny hookers outside that are really obnoxious and loud at three in the morning.”

“Thank you, Fifi,” Katie said. “Come on.”

Shawn, now Fifi, left the apartment after hugging and kissing them both goodbye and leaving cash for the take-out delivery.

“The good thing about this is, we won’t have to arrange six a.m. meet-ups at Dean and Deluca anymore!” Fifi said.

“I guess,” Ali mumbled.

“Have a good night my little princess, I’ll be there in the morning to make breakfast,” Shawn, now Fifi, said, kissing Ali on the forehead. He-- _she_ handed Katie an ice pack. Fifi left for the club in full drag to go on the Metro.

In the bedroom, Ali admired the vanity in the bedroom, filled with more make-up than she had ever seen outside a department store make-up counter, and once Fifi had left, she went to take a shower in the bathroom, which was sparkling clean, despite a few cracked tiles and the fluorescent light over the medicine cabinet that brought out the green circles under her blood-shot, puffy eyes. If anything, Shawn/Fifi was the neatest housekeeper Ali had ever seen.

Ali took a shower to hide the breakdown she needed. Yeah, it might have officially been Katie he kicked out, but she was not going to be separated by her sister by force and stay in that house of horrors. She was so terrified: she had really lost almost everything in the span of a half hour. She knew Dad was going to confirm her worst fears and probably hire someone to shovel everything out of their rooms and throw it all away. She realized she had left her diary and CD collection there, and she cringed. There things in her bedroom that had a lot of sentimental value from her mother. She wouldn’t put it above Dad to destroy all those things in a drunken bender just to get back at her for running away.

She got out of the shower and dressed in her pajamas. Katie had already gotten the plates out for their food and had plated some for Ali.

“I’m so scared,” she admitted to Katie pushing away the take-out plate. She was too anxious to think about her stomach. “We’re homeless, now.”

“It’s okay to be scared. I’ve never been homeless, either, I’m scared as hell, too. I’m going to ask Shawn if we can stay until I’ve put aside enough money to get our own place.”

“I’m getting a different job too,” Ali said. “I’m going to help you put the money aside.”

“No, you finish school-”

“We’re both finishing school, Ali. I can put off another semester, but if you mess up school right now, it’ll effect the colleges you get into. You aren’t taking a job that makes your grades take a dip.”

“Why should it be on you alone?” Ali replied. “I’m not going to make you suffer for me. What about you getting into the police training academy?”

Katie snorted. “Please, if I had a degree, it won’t matter how high or low my GPA was, I’d have a diploma. And we can’t be bad guests for Shawn. We clean and cook and do everything to make Shawn feel more comfortable, since he’s sleeping on the couch until we get our place. Let’s come up with a chore list.”

* * *

The next morning, Shawn woke them up, his wig and dress off, but he still wore his drag make-up. He had gotten in around five, and hadn’t wanted to wake the girls up. Ali had heard him, she hadn’t slept much at all that night. Shawn had tried to be quiet and read on the couch, but the doors creaking woke her.

“How was your night at drag?” she asked as Shawn cracked a few eggs into a bowl to scrambled, getting a cup of coffee for herself.

“I made two-fifty, which is great on a weeknight, baby. Did you sleep well?”

Ali shrugged.

Shawn reached over and hugged her with one arm. “Things’ll get better, my princess, I promise. The only way left is up.”

“I hope so.” Ali gratefully accepted the scrambled eggs that Shawn made while Katie was taking a shower in the bathroom. She came out and Shawn had hot eggs over easy waiting for her and some coffee.

“We’re all going to Al-Anon this afternoon, right?” Shawn prompted.

“Of course,” Katie answered.

“Do you have enough money for subway fare, girls?” Shawn asked. “I packed some lunches for you, too, they’re in the fridge.” He was mothering the two of them, and it felt nice to Ali. It _was_ a relief, despite the stress of what they had been through. She was determined to be a good house guest and to take care of Shawn right back.

* * *

Ali left school and went to call Katie back, but her phone wasn’t working. She wondered if the cell towers were down for some reason, but they weren’t. She realized that Dad had cut off her cell phone.

“Shit,” she mumbled, recognizing why Katie liked to curse so much: it was the most appropriate word to describe how she felt. It made her feel better, too, so she repeated herself. She shoved the phone back into her purse and walked to the Presbyterian church where Al-Anon met. She saw Katie, getting a cup of coffee inside. “Is your phone shut off, too?”

Katie nodded, looking annoyed. “Well, what did we expect?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m being really spoiled to expect one.”

“We’ll get new phones, okay? They might not have cameras and Qwerty keypads, but we’ll have the basics.”

“I guess this is my new life…” Ali sighed. “I’ll get comfortable with being ghetto.”

“We’re anything but ghetto, okay? Even if we have to live there, Mom wouldn't let us be. I know it’s tough…”

“I’m not telling anybody,” she whispered. “Outside of Al-Anon. Will you help me keep this secret?”

“Of course.”

* * *

Ali saw that cute boy who was just a few years older than herself come in, drinking a Dr. Pepper and felt a flutter in her stomach.

Instead, she tried to focus on the meeting. It went off without a hitch: Shawn arrived with some apples and carrots for their snacks, and Katie and Ali had to explain that they had left their father’s home, and if not for their sponsor, they’d be sleeping at a homeless shelter right now.

“I’m really glad you got out. It’s not that bad being on your own,” Matthew said. “And your alcoholic parent can’t use you like a pawn if you don’t have financial ties to them anymore.”

“That’s a big one for a lot of people with a toxic parent: getting financially separated from them,” the group leader said. “It’s going to be tough, but we can help a little bit. But you’ve both got to learn to stand on your own. Children of alcoholics have to grow up faster, it’s unfortunate, but the truth. I think we need to congratulate Katie and Ali for leaving. It’s really hard, but they did it. Keep coming back to group, alright, girls?”

There was a smattering of applause.

After the group, a few people came up to hug the sisters and promise to be there if they needed help or money, whatever they could offer. Ali nibbled on the Chips Ahoy.

Matthew slipped up behind her. “Hey, look, I can’t help you out much, but I’d share my Ramen noodles anytime with you if you wanted.”

She realized he wasn’t using double entendres, and was being sweet and genuine. “Thanks,” she said, smiling. “Maybe you can come over for dinner sometime?”

“That’d be cool,” he said.


	17. Safe

Ali and Katie cleaned and cooked in the evenings after Al-Anon, and while Shawn had make-up appointments with clients. Shawn’s kitchen was practically a galley kitchen with almost no room and few appliances. There was no dishwasher, let alone a microwave. This was a challenge for Ali, who had never lived without either one, and they had to figure out how to time their cooking with having to use the oven only and she to dishpan hands from all the dish scrubbing.

There were nights that Shawn went straight from his make-up appointments to the drag bar. Ali and Katie would take some dinner to him, and the bouncer started to recognize them. The drag queens started to recognize Katie and Ali, too. It was easy to get in, and the girls were oftentimes let in backstage. Ali loved the glamour and rhinestones and sequins the queens wore. They'd let her try on their feather boas and gloves, sometimes.

Shawn always came home to a freshly made bed on the couch and a sparkling clean apartment. But he’d always stay up to make breakfast and pack their lunches.

Katie got on as a server at a higher-end steakhouse restaurant, and started bringing home more money, but wasn’t home that often in the evenings. This left Ali to clean and cook the most. She spent a lot of evenings alone, trying on Fifi Brewster’s drag wear after cleaning the apartment, but putting it back where she found it. Sometimes, it was only Ali and Shawn at the Al-Anon meetings after school. In the evenings, after she finished her homework and studying, she made cutouts of a Christmas tree to tape to the wall, since they couldn’t afford (and didn’t have the room for) an actual tree.

Ali admired Katie more than ever, seeing how tired Katie was getting, but never complained. Ali was afraid to ask Katie how close they were to saving up enough money to move out. Katie insisted that she focus on putting her meager paychecks into college applications and any school costs and her metro card. Ali, in the meantime, tried to figure out what to do for Christmas presents when it was just the two of them and Shawn. She worried about her father, though. She called Father Murphy with the news that they had been kicked out, and Shawn was keeping them, and Father Murphy came over to do a blessing of protection on the three of them, not caring that Shawn was a drag queen, he insisted on ministering to him as well. Shawn had tried to hide his tears that night. Shawn hadn’t had a good experience with the church in the past, but Father Murphy overlooked his sexuailty. That warmed Ali’s heart.

At an Al-Anon meetings, a lot of the times, only Shawn was able to attend, but he was running late.

Ali was apprehensive about going in alone tonight, so she waited outside the church, sipping her water. She looked up and saw Matthew coming down the street. He grinned and waved at her, and she grinned back. It was nice to have a friend who she didn’t have to hide so much from. He held up a few packets of Ramen noodles.

“I promised I‘d share my Ramen,” he said.

“You know, that can be taken in really bad direction.”

Matthew chortled. “I know. But I also know that you’d understand.”

Ali grinned up at him.

They went into the church to get some hot water for the noodles. They ended up sitting together at the meeting after eating together, talking.

She had to admit to herself that she liked Matthew. Matthew was really sweet, and genuine. She needed a friendship outside of just Katie and Shawn after the debaucle with Lauren trying to force her to date and have sex with Jason back in November. She felt really lonely, lately, since she only went to school for school, not to socialize anymore. She couldn’t wait for senior year to be over, since it wasn’t turning out to be nearly as sentimental as it was supposed to be.

“Do you want to hang out sometime?” Ali asked Matthew after the closing prayer.

“Like… what?”

“I want to go to the park and see the trees, but I don’t have a lot of friends to go with me, and I thought… maybe we can have a Ramen Noodle picnic or something.”

“Okay. When are you free?”

“Well… what are you doing on Sunday afternoon?”

“We’re shooting in Central Park in the morning, but in the afternoon, we’re done.“

“You’re in the movie industry?”

“No, I’m a photography intern for Joan Underwood.”

“Joan Underwood! I know that name!” Ali cried. Joan Underwood had shot some of the most iconic fashion magazine covers in the last thirty years.

“Yeah, it was a huge deal when I got this,” Matthew said. “I’m learning a lot, and she’s the best.”

“Can you show me your stuff sometime?” Ali asked. “If you want to.”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve got a nighttime shoot in a half hour, I’ve gotta go. Can you send me a text message sometime?”

“Sure!”

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the Ramen!”

* * *

Ali was woken up by Katie sneaking in at eleven.

“Go back to sleep,” Katie whispered when Ali groggily sat up.

“No,” Ali croaked. “I was waiting for you to get home.”

“You were?” Katie asked, unbuttoning her white cotton workshirt with the bathroom door open.

“Yeah. Matthew brought me some Ramen noodles today at group.”

“Oh, he did? Do you like him?”

Ali blushed, brushing the sleep from her eyes. “I… I think so. It would be nice to have a friend asides from you and Shawn. You’re both so busy right now.”

“Don’t ever feel like you can’t talk to me,” Katie said, opening the door to the bathroom, dressed in her pajamas and sat down on the bed. “I’m never too busy for you.”

A pang of guilt struck Ali. “You are, because you’re trying to support me. And you don’t need to.”

“And just let you go back to Jim? Yeah, great idea. Don’t feel guilty.”

“But you should be out, having fun and partying it up. Dating some hot guy and getting stupid with him.”

“Who says I haven’t gotten some numbers at my job?” Katie asked, winking. “And besides, if I partied all the time, it wouldn’t look good when I get reviewed for entry on the police force. You’re making me more responsible, okay? That’s not a bad thing.”

“Good, I do what I can,” Ali snorted.

“This is only temporary, remember?”

“Can I ask you how close we are to getting our own apartment?”

“Of course! I’ve almost got enough saved up for a deposit and first month’s rent on a one-bedroom. Still working on a last month’s rent amount. We’ll have to share a bed for a while there too until we can get a couch. Don’t worry, we’ll get one that folds out into a bed.”

“I’ll be happy with whatever we get. I hate that Shawn’s sleeping the couch while we’re in his bed.”

“Me too. But we’re so lucky he’s taken us in.”

They sat on the bed, holding each other’s hands for a long moment.

“I need to take my make-up off. Go back to sleep, I’ll try to be as quiet as possible, okay?” Katie said. “Spirit and guts, right?”

“Right. Spirit and guts.”

* * *

On Saturday, Ali had work at the bodega.

She was about to take her break, when a man in a police uniform came up and bought some cigarettes.

“ID, please?” Ali asked.

“Here ya go,” he said, getting out his wallet, flashing his ID. “What’s your name?”

Ali shuddered for a moment. Was this cop hitting on her? “Alison.”

“Are you Alison Beckett?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Did you know your father’s looking for you?”

Alison felt like she had been punched in the stomach. “No, I didn’t,” she answered. “Well, actually, I’m not sure.”

“He’s reported you as a runaway.”

“That’s funny, because I told him I was… Let me take my break.”

Her replacement came in and relieved her, and she bought the cop some coffee.

“So, Dad’s saying I ran away? I haven’t changed jobs, and he’s the one that cut off my phone. He cut off his only means of communication with me-”

“He said you cut it off to get away from him.”

“I’m a teenage girl, why would I do that?” Ali replied.

The cop shrugged. “Well, your are his daughter. If your sister is housing you, she needed to communicate with him-”

“Wait a second. He kicked her out after assaulting her.”

“He… how did he assault her?”

She had surprised the cop. His hardened expression softened.

“He hit her?” he guessed.

“Yes. We attend Al-Anon, and we’re staying with our sponsor right now. Dad hit Katie, and we ran away to stay safe. He hit me too when she was in the Ukraine last summer. He does that when he gets drunk, and I don't want to be there anymore.”

“What’s your sponsor’s name?”

“Shawn Brewster. I can give you his address. My sister and I are sleeping in a warm bed and we have hot meals and a clean, safe apartment. What more do we need?”

“Your father wants you back home. That’s why he sent me.”

Ali shook her head. “I’m in a good place. I’m safe. He abandoned me last summer, and I almost killed myself, I’m not going back there. He even said to us that if we walked out, he had no daughters. He disowned us for not turning on each other. And what he did to Katie… that was unforgivable. My big sister… she’s everything to me. She’s done more for me in the last four months than Dad’s done since Mom died three years ago. I’m not going back there.”

“What did your father do?”

“He was too drunk to manage the apartment, checks were bouncing left and right, and the utilities got shut off… I can’t live like that. I’ve been in Shawn Brewster’s apartment for almost six weeks, and we’re safe there. Dad terrorized us with his drinking, and he was falling off the wagon when we left. Like I said, I’m not going back there.”

“Those are pretty serious child abuse allegations, young lady.”

Ali shivered; she hadn’t been called ‘young lady’ in a few weeks. “Check his records. Child neglect charges were pressed against him in August when I tried to commit suicide, but he got them dropped. He’s a lawyer.”

The cop grimaced. “Yeah. Lawyers can manipulate the law and screw up cops over.”

Ali swallowed. “I don’t want to go back there,” Ali repeated. “I’m safe, I’m getting to school on time, my attendance is good, I’m doing my homework,  and I’m eating and sleeping and working a part-time job, and I’m healthy. I wouldn’t be any of these things if I moved back in with him.”

“Alright, doll. I’ll bring this up with the social worker presiding over your case.”

Ali felt sick at the thought. “I’ve got a social worker and a case?”

“Yes, CPS is interested in this.”

“Will you be on my side, though? Isn’t that what cops are supposed to do? It’s only a few more months before I turn eighteen, and Katie and I are going to have our own apartment together. She’s my hero. She’s sacrificed so much for me, you’ll have to put her jail before you separate us.”

He nodded. “I’ll put all this into the case and report it back. For now, let me just take down the address that you’re staying at to put on file. You might get inspected, you might not. It’s a short time before you turn eighteen and you’ll be a legal adult, but I'll recommend that you stay with her. Okay?”

Ali nodded. She gave the address to the cop and he thanked her for the coffee.

“Look, please don’t try to hurt Katie. Katie wants to be a cop, and she’ll be a great one if you let her. She’s… she’s _everything_. Don’t screw her over. Please?”

“That’s not the business I’m in. I give you my word, on my badge. I’ll do my best to protect both of you.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Ali stopped by Katie’s restaurant after she got off work, and helped her with rolling silverware for the dinner shift in cloth napkins, telling her about the cop. “Bad news: Dad sent a cop looking for me. He reported me as a runaway.”

“Wow, a month later, he reports you,” Katie said, rolling her eyes. “That was really fast!

“I told the cop everything. That Dad hit you and has a drinking problems. The cop didn’t know about last summer, either,” she admitted. “I begged him to help us and not screw us over. He seemed like he was going to try to. We haven’t gone too far, have we? We didn’t break the law, right?”

“Well… Dad knew I was taking you. You left under duress…” Katie pinched the bridge of her nose. “He waited a long time to report you as missing. He’s bringing our family drama out and trying to make himself the victim, although he’s the cause of it.”

“Okay. I only got around to bringing you some chicken fajitas for dinner, I’ve got to stop by the Drag Corral for Shawn, too.”

“Alright, thank you for the food. Go do your homework and… buy some Ramen for your date tomorrow.”

“I’ll wait up on you. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”


	18. Christmas on a budget

Ali woke up early to sneak off to early mass. She dressed in a full knee-length skirt and a cardigan to look a little girlier and old-fashioned. She borrowed a pair of hand gloves from Fifi, ones that were white and didn’t cover her scar. It seemed stupid to wear the ones that covered her scar in front of Matthew: he knew. She put on her scarf and coat and took her history book with her, since she had to keep studying for the History test on Wednesday.

Dating a guy she actually chose… this felt scary too, but in an exciting way. She had been terrified when she went to go to her first date with Jason, where he had tried to impress her with getting trashed and being obnoxious. Why had she put up with that?

She sent Matthew a text that she was waiting by one of the ponds, where she took in the beautiful Christmas designs on the trees. Instead of studying, she got out her small sketch pad and tried to draw her view.

She got a text from Matthew that she could watch from a distance what they were shooting, now that it was almost over. She got up and went to the steps to see the shoot behind a thicket.

She almost immediately recognized the elderly Joan Underwood, whose now-silver hair was teased into a bouffant, in all black capris and a three-quarters sleeve black top and ballet flats, and her huge Jackie O Sunglasses, holding the camera on a strap around her neck. Matthew was holding a giant silver screen to reflect light, and the model was posing in high-end, colorful haute couture on one of the rocks.

Ali stood with a lot of the people who were watching from the sidelines. She didn’t want to disturb this process. This wasn’t the first time she had seen a photoshoot in Central Park, being a native New Yorker, but it was a first for some of these tourists.

When they were done, they had the model go back to the little tent to change out of the dress, and Matthew’s gaze fell on Ali right away. He waved to her, and she waved back, but he had things left to do to finish the shoot before Joan dismissed him.

She got a text from Katie asking how things were going, and she smirked to herself. 

_ He’s still working on the shoot. _

She found a nice spot to sit down in the grass and got out her History book as the crowd dispersed. She focused on her studies for an hour.

“You found me!” 

She looked up to see Matthew standing over her, holding a thermos and a backpack.

“You’re done?” she asked, shutting her book and tucking it away in her bag.

“I am,” he agreed, sitting down beside her. “I got some hot water from the catering van,” he held up the thermos and reached into his backpack. “And I brought the Ramen.” He pulled out a few packets of the dried noodles and some bowls.

They started making the noodles, and Ali told him about how much she liked to cook and was just learning, but it was kind of difficult to make proper meals on a tight budget.

“Do you game?” Matthew asked, almost nervously.

“Game?” Ali repeated, unaware of this word’s meaning.

“I mean, like, do you play card games, video games, board games?”

Ali grimaced: she was afraid of looking like a nerd. “My sister and I play cards a lot.” 

“What about Dungeons and Dragons?”

She realized Matthew was still being sweet and genuine still, he wasn’t mocking her. She had pretended she didn’t game at all when she got to junior high and high school, but she had heard of D&D. “Well… not really. But I’ve heard of it.”

“Oh. Well, I was just wondering you wanted to come by one game night with some of my friends.”

“I don’t do well unless I know the game.”

“Well, that’s not the point. We just have a good time and drink a lot.”

“Is it complicated?”

“I’ll walk you along. What do you play?”

“Phase 10 is a favorite for us. Well, it was, it’s been a while since I’ve played. And Monopoly, of course.”

Matthew chortled. “That’s like, the course of most family fights. In normal families, not our kind.”

“Yeah…” Ali muttered.

“Well, if I ever can get you into D&D, let me warn you: don’t try to be as evil as possible until you’re ready.”

“I can be evil?”

“Oh yeah, there’s 9 different alignments, the one that looks the most enticing is Chaotic Evil, and you can have multiple players being Chaotic Evil, but it’s a mess. The first time I played…” Matthew broke up into laughter. “The first time I played, I played with a bunch of other noobs, and we were all like, ‘I want to be… chaotic evil!’” He crooned. He did an evil laugh, and Ali broke up into giggles. “The Game Master tried to talk us all out of it, but we ended up losing that game really fast. We’re a bunch of nerds.”

“Yeah, me too,” Ali admitted.

“You? You’re a nerd?”

“A closeted one, yeah. I got in with a lot of popular kids at school for a while, but they ended up being… just absolute jerks.”

“The nerds can tell you that,” Matthew scoffed. 

“I know. Everybody’s got their own challenges in life.”

“True. I’m glad I met you, Ali.”

“Me too.”

* * *

Ali came home from the date and Katie was coming back upstairs.

“Ali?” Katie asked. “Hey, the furnace is out. The apartment’s colder inside than it is outside.”

“Ugh, great,” Ali muttered.

“I just talked to the landlord, and he’s turning on the heat,” Katie said. “I got some chicken, I left it in the kitchen, but let me get out of my uniform.” She went into the bathroom and turned on the wall heater to change clothes.

A minute later, Katie came out dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of yoga pants, and Ali had started eating a few of the chicken fingers. Ali was still wearing her coat to stay warm.

“How did it go?” Katie asked.

Ali blushed, reaching for a chicken finger. “Matthew’s really sweet,” she admitted. “He’s really funny too.”

“I get that about him,” Katie said, taking her hair out of the ponytail and braiding it over her shoulder. “Are you going out with him again?”

Ali shrugged. “He hasn’t asked. I hope he calls.”

“Don’t freak out if you don’t hear from him in the first three days,” Katie coached. “But I think he’d make an excellent prom date.”

“Prom?” Ali repeated. She had seen girls all over school gossipping and looking at the Prom style magazines. Ali knew money was tight, so she had written it off, and decided she wasn’t going. The group leader at Al-Anon had said that being the child of an alcoholic made you grow up faster, and Ali had accepted that she wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of things that other seniors in high school did. “That’s so far off. And I’m not going.”

“What? Why not? I skipped my prom so I could be ‘cool’ and I’ve regretted it ever since!” Katie cried, looking horrified. “Come on, let me live vicariously through you!”

Ali snorted. “It’s a waste of money we don’t have. You can just a take me to a drag show on my eighteenth birthday and we’ll call it a day.”

“We’ll dip into the apartment deposit savings fund for a dress,” Katie said. 

“No way!” Ali cried.

“We can discount shop! Let’s get creative. You can sew, we can probably work wonders with Shawn’s sewing machine and a thrift store dress. There’s plenty of time!”

“When are you going to have time to take me shopping? You work the weekends, like a dog, for me. You’d have to take time off from work and we need that money. And tickets cost money, too. Like I said, prom is a giant money pit. All that money spent for just one night.”

“I know… it’s moments like these that I get so angry at Dad…”

“The truth? Me too. But please, don’t mention prom in group. I don’t want everybody pressuring Matthew into blowing all that money to take me. He’s struggling enough as it is, he barely gets enough in his internship to pay for an overcrowded apartment.”

“Alright. I promise.”

* * *

Matthew caught up with Ali after Al-Anon over some Ramen noodles. They ate in the cafeteria of the Presbyterian church with the promise to clean up after themselves.

“I’m going back to school in Scarsdale next week,” he admitted. “Do you want to go to the New Year’s Even celebration in Times Square?”

“I’ve been before,” Ali admitted. “Do you really want to go?”

“In all honestly? No,” Matthew admitted. “I can’t imagine the logistical nightmare of getting home.”

“Yeah, that’s my reason exactly for not wanting to go,” Ali admitted. “So you’re going home to Scarsdale in the New Year?”

He nodded. “I’ll miss you. But there’s always email and text and phone calls.”

“Yeah, true,” Ali admitted. “Do you want to come to the Steakhouse where Katie works for New Year’s? Shawn wanted to take me to the Drag Corral that night to party after I got off work, and then we’d have a super-late dinner and exchange our presents.”

“But Christmas already passed.”

“Katie had to work.”

“What did you do for Christmas?”

Ali shrugged. “Stayed home in a warm apartment. Read some books and cooked some, went to Midnight Mass.”

“If you had told me, I’d have invited you over!”

“No, it’s fine. Katie and I agreed to wait to celebrate Christmas. And I’d like it if you came with us on New Year’s.”

“I’ll be there. Do you need me to bring anything?”

Ali shook her head. “No. Shawn’s going to help me bring the food over in his car.”

“I’ll see you at...”

“At eleven.”

The next day passed and Ali started to make a casserole and some vegetables and a dessert. Katie said she’d get one of the cooks to cook some steaks for them, and they had to promise to clean up afterwards and lock up properly.

Shawn drove Ali over with the food earlier that night, and they left it in the refrigerator. Katie insisted on taking both the Christmas and New Year’s shifts because of the tips, and Ali assisted Shawn getting dressed for the drag show that night and got to watch from backstage as the drag queens killed it. After New Year’s was rung in, they started back to the Steakhouse together, Fifi in full drag.

At the Steakhouse, things were winding down and the last servers were leaving. 

“Happy New Year!” Ali sang out when she spotted Katie sweeping out the food and trash under the tables in her section.

“Happy New Year! Let’s make it a good one! Guess what I got in tips?” Katie asked.

“Seventy-five?” Ali guessed.

“A hundred and thirty!”

“That’s amazing!” Fifi cried. 

“With this, we can start apartment-shopping,” Katie said gleefully. 

Ali squealed with delight. “Really?” she cried.

“Yes, really,” Katie said.

“I heard you’re moving?” Matthew piped up, appearing behind Fifi and Ali. “I have a fouton I need to give away, I don’t want to move it back up to Scarsdale if you want it.”

“Yes! We want it!” Ali cried.

“Shondra in group said she had a double mattress and boxsprings if you wanted it,” Fifi added in.

“We’re not going to be sleeping on the floor!” Ali cried.

“I’m going to go change into something a little more comfortable and clock out,” Katie said. “Guys, sit down at the only booth that’s set!”

Ali took Matthew’s side of the booth and Katie came out in jeans and a sweater, her hair down, and was carrying a few plates. “Let me help!” Ali cried. 

“Guess what? My boss gave us some of the leftover bottles of wine!” Katie announced.

“Awesome!” Matthew cried.

“Let’s have Christmas, finally!”


	19. Cinderella

Ali and Katie had gotten an apartment of their own in February on a six-month lease (seeing that Katie would have to move out in September for Police Training Academy and Ali was going to move to school), and Matthew and Shawn had helped them move in. It was a one-bedroom walk-up that smelled like curry and chicken over an Asian restaurant, but it was theirs. And it had a bed and a futon couch, donations from the Al-Anon group, and more kitchen stuff donations from them as well, like plates, bowls, silverware, pots and pans. It was enough for them. Shawn told them that he would miss how clean his apartment was when he got home every night and having an all-out maid service. Instead, he hired Ali to make a few extra bucks cleaning Shawn’s apartment for him once a week. Ali became a mirage at school as well. She did the bare minimum and took a study hall last period so she could sneak out early to get things done.

On the Saturday of prom, Ali woke up early and went to work in the bodega. She and Matthew had made a few plans to hang out and do free stuff when he came down on the weekends, like go to the street fairs, which was a lot of fun in New York in the springtime. The last three months hadn’t been easy, but they had kept up over the phone and he came down to visit a few times a month. They had traipsed through Williamsburg one weekend, and found a few cool shops in the gentrifying areas. Matthew found a shop with old cameras and accessories, and Ali loved watching him take it all in, and asking to see different cameras and flashes and tripods. Truthfully, she found it kind of sexy. It was nice to be going on dates with a boy who was passionate about something wholesome and fun that she could tell Katie and Shawn about. It hadn’t been fun to tell her sister about Jason trying to grope her and how the only thing he really excelled at was smoking weed and beer pong, but Matthew was different. She and Matthew were going to have sandwiches she had made the night before as a picnic in the Park that afternoon and then, they were going to the Laser Tag in Times Square to play, Ali found a coupon and they agreed to go dutch treat. She was looking forward to it, although she was sad to miss the prom.

Ali got a text from Matthew at the end of her shift at work that he had to cancel.

“What?” she cried, horrified. 

Now, she’d have nothing to distract her from missing prom. She texted Katie and Shawn the bad news, and got a response from Shawn.

_ Come down to the Drag Corral,  _ he texted back.  _ I’ll get you into the show tonight. _

Ali, frustrated, took the train to the club, and waved hello to the bouncers, who were gearing up for the night and making plans.

“Alison!” Shawn shouted from the backstage dressing room entrance. He looked mad. “Come here!”

“Thanks for letting me come to drag tonight-”

“Young lady,” he said. “Just who do you think you lived with for two and a half months? Trying to skip out on prom?”

“I-”

He took her hand and marched her into the dressing room, where all the Queens were getting dressed, and chatting with none other than Matthew and Katie. Everyone looked up, and Ali realized Matthew was wearing a tux and was holding a single rose with an elastic band on it and a shopping sack.

“Did you really think you could skip out on prom?” Matthew asked, a smile creeping across his face.

“And did you think we couldn’t hook you up with a dress?” Shatzi Pizzazz asked, standing up without her wig on.

“Katie told us that you were going to skip your prom, you cannot do that,” Shawn lectured. “Matthew, don’t you have something to ask her?”

“Alison James Beckett, will you go to prom with me?” Matthew asked, grinning.

Alison swooned, while the rest of the drag queens squealed. “Yes! I will go with you,” she said, crossing the tiny dressing room to take his hands.

“Okay, Matthew, you’ve got to go, we’ve got to make her up and pick out a dress!”

“Nothing red, okay?” Katie begged.

“Girl, you shut your face, you don’t know the first thing about glam, look at those shoes! What are they for, orthopedic purposes?” Mamma Sass, the largest Queen in the room said to Katie. Katie scoffed, but laughed.

“I’ll work on my shoe collection,” Katie offered.

“You better!”

Matthew left the dressing room and the Drag Queens attacked Ali with make-up brushes, hair spray, and glitter, and they found a spaghetti strap dress that was a little too big for her made up of rainbow sequins and black lace. Ali fell in love with it, and one of the Queens took the dress in quickly so it would fit her better. Ali changed into the dress once her make-up and hair were done.

“Wait a second, I don’t have any shoes!” Ali cried. She had tiny feet compared to the Queens. There was no way to wear their size elevens!

“Matthew, get in here!” Mamma called. “She’s dressed!” Matthew came into the room. “Did you think we’d actually skip the shoe part, honey?”

“They have the prom-dress hook-up, I’ve got the  _ Vogue _ costume closet hook-up and I pulled in some favors,” he said pulling a few shoe boxes out of the shopping bag. Some slightly worn, but broken-in four inch heels in her shoe size of six and half came out. Ali realized they were Louboutins, and she squealed. “I have to get these back in the morning, okay?”

“Okay,” Ali said, admiring her feet as he knelt down to put them on her. A camera flash went off: Katie had a small disposable camera in her hands.

“If only I had one of you too,” Shawn muttered to Matthew.

Ali caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was surprised. She didn’t just look sultry and glamorous, she looked… happy. The Queens hadn’t quite done drag make-up on her, but more of an evening look, with winged eyeliner and false lashes, her brows filled in tastefully for a prom look.

“And the finishing touch!” Shatzi shouted, and brought over some costume jewelry to go with the dress, completing the look.

“My baby! She’s going to prom!” Shawn swooned. “She looks so beautiful! We’ve got finish getting ready and take pictures with her!”

Matthew stood up and put the rose wrist corsage on Ali’s wrist. “I made that,” Velma Plundoor called.

“It’s beautiful! Thank you all so much! I’m so excited!”

One of them thrust a sequined clutch into her hand.

“I’ll get your things home,” Katie said, gathering Ali’s street clothes and backpack.

“I can’t stop thanking you all!” Ali cried, feeling tears of happiness come to her eyes. “I feel like a princess right now!”

“Well, what do you  _ think  _ you are with all us Queens?” Mamma asked.

Matthew and Ali posed for some pictures in the club for Katie while the queens finished getting dressed. They came out, bouncing with excitement, and demanded pictures with Ali and Matthew. Ali’s face was already hurting from grinning so hard.

“There’s some condoms in that clutch, be safe tonight!” Velma called after them as Matthew escorted her out the door.

“You better not!” Katie shouted. She and Matthew burst into embarrassed giggles.

“They’re a great group,” Matthew said. 

“Who arranged it all?”

“Katie called me a few days ago, and told me you weren’t going to prom, but she wanted to see if she could get a dress for you from one of Shawn’s friends. Shawn, Katie, and I decided to surprise you.”

“This is the best surprise ever! I wonder how they got the tickets!”

“Katie served your principal and his wife at the steakhouse a few weeks ago and asked him, instead of tip, if she could get prom tickets for you.”

Ali burst into happy tears. “My sister’s the best!”

“She really is.”

They ended up getting McDonald’s for dinner (they got a lot of approving smiles and compliments on Ali’s dress) and they took the Metro to Stuyvesant for the dance.

Ali took Matthew’s arm as they were announced at the door. Ali realized that her dress was much flashier and gaudier than all the solids and silks, but instead of feeling self-conscious, she felt special. And really loved. For once, she didn’t mind being different and sticking out.

“Where did she  _ get _ that a dress that hideous? Clowns R’Us? Ew!” Lauren said loudly to Beth as Ali and Matthew walked past.

“Come on,” Matthew said, his lip curling in Lauren’s direction.

“No,” Ali said, letting go of his arm. “No, Lauren, I got it from someone who loves me a whole hell of a lot. And I actually  _ like _ my dress and, unlike  _ some _ people, I actually  _ love _ myself! So much that I don’t have to go around trashing other people to make myself feel like a half a human being. I’m a whole one, thanks.” There was a collective gasp surrounding Lauren at Ali’s words. And Ali wasn’t ashamed: she only had a few more weeks of school left, and she’d probably never seen Lauren again. “Have a nice prom.”

Ali turned back to Matthew and took his arm. “Damn, girl!” he chortled. “You just handed her ass to her!”

“I did, didn’t I? I’m so sick of that girl, honestly.”

They found a seat to leave her clutch and his jacket while they visited the buffet. 

“I love that dress,” a girl said to Ali.

“Me too! I saw you the moment you walked in! I think it’s great!”

“Thank you! I love yours, too,” Ali said.

There was a sudden shriek at the end of the buffet line near the punch bowl. Lauren had been pushed aside, and spilled some ruby-red punch on her white satin prom dress. Ali had to stifle her laughter. 

Matthew turned out to be an incredibly fun dancer, even though he wasn’t that good at it. He made Ali laugh a with his awkward, but confident white boy dance moves. A group of kids circled around them, cheering him on as he made a fool of himself, chanting, “Go white boy! Go white boy!”

A sweet black girl named Shondra won the prom queen crown (not Lauren, thank goodness), and Jason got kicked out by the chaperones when he and his buddies were caught sharing a flask in the cafeteria’s kitchen. Ali was having the most magical night of her life so far.

Ali went to the restroom to touch up her make-up in the mirror, and she felt a hand scratch her left wrist, the fingernail digging into her skin, and then her stomach dropped when she heard the costume pearls clatter to the tile. She hadn’t worn her fingerless gloves!

“I knew it!” 

Lauren was standing there, triumphantly, with the giant pink splotch on her white dress. Ali snatched her wrist out of Lauren’s view.

“All this time, you’ve been hiding that you slit your wrist all year long with your stupid signature fingerless gloves and this bracelet! I knew it!” Lauren’s eyes gleamed with hateful triumph. “You love yourself so much that you tried to kill yourself, Ali?” She laughed cruelly. 

“Get away from me!” Ali cried, picking up her clutch and ran out of the restroom, right into Mrs. Newton, who was chaperoning.

“Alison! I’m so glad you made it to prom!” Mrs. Newton said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s… nothing. Just Lauren just destroyed my bracelet and… it’s nothing.”

“I’m happy you came, okay?” Mrs. Newton said pointedly. “I know this year hasn’t been easy on you. I don’t think any year in high school has been easy for you.”

“You… you know?”

“It was obvious. About your father. Your mother was an amazing woman, too, we were all heart-broken when she died so suddenly. We loved her on the PTA, she was a wonderful person. I hope you’re safe right now.”

“I am. My sister and I have our own apartment and it’s got a lot of locks on it.”

“Good. I hope you have a wonderful prom, dear. You deserve it.”

“Thanks, Mrs. N.”

“Oh, wait a second-” Mrs. Newton pulled out a pair of tickets from her purse. “This is for the After Prom for you and your date. I’d love to see you there.”

Lauren finding out that she had a suicide scar on the inside of her wrist suddenly didn’t seem like such a big deal. “Everybody’s been so nice to me tonight,” Ali said. “I don’t deserve this-”

“Yes, you do. I hope to see you there, I’m going to be running the blackjack table. Come by and see me.”

“Alright, I’ll let my date know.”

“Alright, honey.”

* * *

At midnight, when the prom was over, Ali and Matthew decided to go to the After Prom party. It was a good time, they got some ‘prom chips’ to play the gambling games and they went to the casino set up in the cafeteria, where PTO and teachers were running the party in the Arabian-themed casino the junior class had set up after the dance. Matthew ended up cashing out with five times his original chips (one of the dads joked he was card-counting), which he used to buy Ali an SHS Prom 2003 t-shirt. While Ali had taken off her shoes and stored her handbag in her locker, the other kids had brought comfortable clothes, like pajama bottoms and t-shirts to wear. She changed into a pair of gym shorts from her locker and the prom t-shirt later, and they put Matthew’s jacket, tie, and dress shoes in there, too. They went to the hallway that had been lined with giant pillows and sheets to make it look like a tent in the desert to watch _ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade _ .

“This has been the best night of my life,” Ali sighed, sitting between his legs on a cushion. He held her in the dim light and rocked her.

“I’m happy you let me take you,” he whispered into her ear. “I like spending time with you, Ali. You’re a really cool person.”

“So are you,” she admitted.

“I’m gonna ask you something, and you can say no but… would you be my girlfriend?”

A grin split Ali’s aching face from ear to ear as she turned around to gaze up into his face. “Yes. I’d love to be your girlfriend.”

He bent his head down, taking hers into his hands, and pressed his lips to her mouth; and Ali felt the magic, the tingling, the sparks. She wasn’t sure how the rest of her life would play out after this amazing night, but she suddenly wasn’t so scared of the future. Things would be okay.

* * *

Matthew and Ali watched the sun rise after the After Prom event was over. They hadn’t wanted this night to end, either one of them. Matthew insisted on taking her home, so they caught the Metro to Ali and Katie’s apartment across the river in Brooklyn.

She was certain Katie was waiting when she unlocked the door. “Before I open this, let me say goodnight,” she said.

“Or good morning?”

“Or whatever. This was the best night ever,” she sighed. “I’m going to bed, but I’ll send you a text when I wake up.”

“Okay. Thanks for taking me as your date.”

He leaned in and tentatively kissed her again. Their first kiss had been broken up by a well-meaning PTA mother, but this was much more private. She enjoyed it more this time, letting the kisses linger.

“Bye, Matthew,” Ali said, turning around to go into the apartment.

“Bye,” he said, a grin growing on his face.

“Oh!” she cried, and handed the shoes over to him. “Here!”

“Thanks. We’ll talk soon.”

Ali went to the bathroom in the bedroom, trying to be quiet and not wake Katie, but Katie’s murmured. “How was it?”

Ali turned around to see her sister grinning at her from the bed. Ali skipped the post-prom shower for now and jumped onto the bed beside her sister. “Amazing. I told Lauren off and a really sweet girl from my Pre-Calc class won Prom Queen, and everybody loved Matthew’s dancing skills and my dress and... “ She swallowed. “Matthew asked me to be his girlfriend.”

Katie gasped and sat up to hug her. “No! Shut up! I’m so happy for you! It sounds amazing!”

“It was! Except for when Lauren broke my pearl bracelet… I don’t know if anybody listened to her when she tried to tell everyone I tried to commit suicide. I guess I’ll find out Monday.”

“Hmph,” Katie snorted. “What a nasty wannabe.” She picked up Ali’s hand and turned her sister’s wrist over to see the scar. “Do you want to get a tattoo to cover that up?”

“A tat?” Ali repeated, bewildered.

“Yeah. Think about it.”

“I’m too young for a tattoo… aren’t I? At least a legal one.”

Katie shrugged. “I’d sign for you. I’m kind of seeing a guy who has a few, he’d give us a good shop suggestion.”

“Let me think about it,” Ali said. She had considered a lot of tattoos in her lifetime, but had never settled on anything. She knew she’d get one... one day, when she had money to spare. Right now, she did not. “Since when did you start dating a guy with tattoos and how did you find them, huh? You didn’t tell me about it?”

“Well, that’s a story for another time,” Katie said, grinning. “It’s a new thing. I gotta get up for work, anyway. Brunch shift starts soon.” She plunked a kiss on Ali’s temple and got up.


	20. Final

Ali slept with the windows open and curtains pulled to keep the sunlight out. The apartment as relatively quiet until about noon, when a beeping truck backed up under the window for something. 

Ali got up and made some coffee and had some eggs, and she texted Matthew right away. She sat down beside the window fan and studied for her finals coming up, but her phone chimed. It was Katie.

_ What do u want 4 a tattoo? _

Ali smirked to herself.  _ Can’t decide. _

She went back to her books, but started thinking. Their sister motto was  _ Spirit and Guts _ , why not get that tattooed on herself? That would never change, she was certain of it. She picked up her phone and texted Katie back.  _ I think I’ve made up my mind. _

A moment later, Katie responded.  _ Great! Get off @ 1, let’s get inked! _

“Today?” Ali asked her phone, surprised. She got in the shower and raced to get ready. She arrived early at the brunch restaurant, where Katie had saved a croissant for her. She nibbled on the croissant in the kitchen storeroom while Katie changed out of her server’s uniform and into a pair of ripped capri-length jeans and a worn-out Billie Joel concert t-shirt of their mom’s from years ago. “Do you really think I can get a tattoo? It’s six more weeks until my eighteenth birthday.”

“I think so,” Katie said. “All I have to do is sign for you. CPS considers me your guardian anyway.” She slipped on her scratched Wayfarer knock-off sunglasses and a pair of laceless Keds. For a moment, Ali admired her sister’s sense of style and tomboyishness. Ali had always wished to be a little more athletic, but hated sports. But she still loved being girly and dressing up, she was not ready to give that up as her daily style. “Let’s go!” 

The two sisters started out through the dining room, but Katie flung an arm to block Ali, stopping them both. “Wait a second, that’s Dad!”   
Ali’s jaw dropped. “No, it’s not! Wait, it is!”   
Their father was at the bar, dressed in a blue dress workshirt and a tie, but looked hungover and green. His clothes were loose on him, and he had lost weight. He was sipping a bloody mary and was quite involved in it. “I think we can slip past, just don’t make any noise,” Katie whispered, grabbing her arm. The two sipped out through the dining room, their father’s back to them.

The day was bright and sunny, and the trees had finished blooming. “Well, I guess it’s obvious Dad is still drinking,” Ali grumbled.

“He’s out of our lives until he wants to go into rehab,” Katie said. “He’s got to make the effort first.”

The sun beat down on them as they made their way to the tattoo shop where one of Katie’s friend’s worked. A guy covered in tattoos and piercings. was behind the counter and greeted them. “Welcome to NYC Inkblot Tattoo, what can I do for you ladies?”

“We’re looking for a first tattoo,” Katie said. “Is Nitro here?”

“Right around the corner, he’s with a client right now. Why don’t you sit and take a look at the different designs we’ve got in our books?”

Katie and Ali flipped through the books on the wall and looked at the different designs. “I already know what I want,” Ali said. 

“What are you getting?”

“I’m going to get the words ‘Spirit and Guts’ tattooed over my scar,” Ali said. “Because I didn’t have it until… until you came back for me. And I want something happy that makes me feel stronger.”

Katie’s expression softened, and Ali thought she’d cry for a moment. “I like that,” Katie said. “That’s what we’re getting, then.”

“Alright! Wait,  _ we _ ?” 

“Yes  _ we _ . You didn’t think I’d let you be the only Beckett that’s not tattooed, did you? I’m going to go see if I can get everything filed away properly for you,” Katie said, going up to the bar. “And then I’m next!”

Ali sorted through the tattoo sketch books some more while Katie presented both their IDs and signed over consent for Ali.

“Are you Kate’s little sister?”

Ali turned around to see a guy with a green mohawk, piercings, and tattoos behind her. “Yes, I’m Ali Beckett.”

“Cool, I’m Nick Brandon, better known as Nitro. So Kate texted me earlier and said that you were interested in getting your first tattoo?”

“I am,” Ali said. “I know what I want, too.”

Ali and Nitro designed the tattoo, picking out a font that was quite girly, but not too frilly. Ali showed him her scar. “This is where I want it,” she said, showing him the scar. “Over this scar.”

“Wow…” Nitro said, looking at the scar. “That’s pretty hardcore.”

“Yeah… it was a mistake,” Ali admitted, blushing. 

“Hey, don’t worry, I know a lot of people who’ve had a rough time. But you’re still here, right? That’s what counts.”

Ali’s heart warmed. Of course, she couldn’t judge Nitro for looking so different. He seemed to be a pretty nice and understanding guy. “Yeah, it is. That’s the motto Katie and I came up with. It’s our sister motto.”

“I like it. I’m going to go put this onto transfer paper. I’ll be right back.”

“Is everything okay?” Ali asked Katie.

“I think we’ve got everything ready to go,” Katie said.

“What is this I’m hearing!? My baby’s getting ink?!” Shawn strode into the tattoo shop. Ali squealed. 

“Both of us,” Katie said, grinning.

“Surprise!” Ali added in.

“Where are you getting yours?” Shawn asked.

“Under my clothes,” Katie responded.

Shawn and Ali caught up with Katie, and they got the giggles talking about Shawn’s first tattoo and how much of a meltdown he had, screaming at the tattoo artist until it was over. A few minutes later, Nitro came out with a transfer tattoo papers.

“Alright, we’re ready to go,” Nitro said.

“I’m bringing Katie with me,” Ali said. “And Shawn!”

“I think we can squeeze two more people into my booth,” Nitro said. “This way.”

Back into the booth, Nitro transferred the pattern to Ali’s wrist and started.

“This might sting a little, like a rubberband being snapped against your skin. Try to relax, alright?” Nitro coached.

“Go to your zen place, Ali,” Katie suggested.

The needle gun buzzed and Nitro began to work on Ali’s wrist. It did sting a bit, but Ali tried to relax, telling herself it was just a moment in time. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe.

“How is it?” Katie asked.

Ali’s eyes fluttered open. “I… it hurts a little bit. Not so bad, though.” She glanced down to see the tattoo partially filled in.

“It looks great, so far,” Shawn promised.

Nitro gripped Ali’s wrist a little harder with his gloved hands. “Keep trying to stay relaxed.”

Ali took a deep breath, and he drew again with the needle on her wrist.

When Ali’s tattoo was colored in with black ink, Nitro swabbed it with A + D cream and put a clear bandage onto it. He gave her instructions on how to keep the tattoo clean while it healed, and then, it was Katie’s turn. She laid down in the chair.   
“Where are you getting it?” Ali asked.

Katie rolled her t-shirt up to reveal her bra.

“Here,” she said, pointing to the spot right under the crease of her breast.

“Why there?” Ali asked. “You want our motto on your boobs?”

“No, under my boob! This one, it’s closer to my heart. See? I don’t want it visible where anybody in police training’s going to ask about it,” Katie replied. 

“Why not?”

“Because I’m going to catch enough flack for being a woman, I don’t want any more,” Katie said, rolling her eyes. Nitro began the process of putting the transfer ink onto Katie’s skin.

“I can’t wait to see how tough Kate’s going to pretend to be!” Shawn giggled.

“You know she will!” Ali agreed.

“You two shut it!” Katie responded.

“Don’t talk, and try to breathe slowly,” Nitro coached. Ali saw the tell-tale signs of Katie being in pain, but she was trying her damnedest to not show it. Her muscles clenched and her breathing was stiff, and Ali and Shawn tried not to laugh aloud as Ali admired the new tattoo’s grace and beauty on her wrist.

Katie didn’t complain or say anything, even during her break. “It’s not so bad,” Katie lied.

“Yes, it is!” Ali and Shawn responded and burst into giggles. 

“She looks like someone’s zapping her with electricity,” Shawn noted.

“Eh, shaddup!” Katie responded.

“It’s going to hurt,” Nitro said. “It’s on bone, not fat.”

Katie looked like she wanted to jump off the table when they started back up. Katie somehow made it through, and she gasped in air raggedly when Nitro finished it up. It was something Ali and Shawn thought was hilarious. 

“We’ve got matching tattoos, now!” Katie sang as Nitro covered the new tattoo in a clear plastic bandage, a relieved grin crossing Katie’s face. “They look amazing! I’m so happy we did this!”

“Me too,” Ali sighed. 

“Expect some soreness. it will bleed for a day or so, but after that, it’ll start scabbing. Follow this list for care,” Nitro said, giving Katie her copy of directions. “Keep it clean, yours especially. There’s more sweat glands there, you don’t want it infected while it’s healing.”

“I’ll be careful,” Katie said.

“No underwire bras for you for a week, either, until it’s healed, too.” 

“If you go bra-less outside the apartment, I’m going to kill you,” Ali said.

“You never know what I’m going to do next!” Katie replied, her grin turning evil.

“Glad you two came in today, it was my pleasure,” Nitro said. 

“We’re going to go out and have some celebratory drinks or something,” Shawn said. “I’ve got a show tonight, you know!”

* * *

At school on Monday, school was eerily quiet. Ali was suspicious. When she got to Homeroom, Lauren was sitting with Beth, whispering.

Ali kept her long fingerless gloves on and tried to ignore them. Before she knew it, the rumors went around school that Ali had tried to commit suicide at some point. Ali tried to hold her head high and remember that she was not going to be around these people much longer. And she had a new tattoo to cover up the scar if the glove was pulled off.

As Ali started on lunch, Lauren and Beth came by with their new little flunkie, a sophomore named Kelly. There was a small crowd of students surrounding Ali, and she realized they were waiting for a girl fight. “Look,” Lauren said, eyes twinkling. “It’s poor little Alison Beckett!”

“Can you just go away, I’m trying to eat my lunch,” Ali replied. 

Lauren grabbed Ali’s left hand, splitting yogurt all over the sidewalk. “I saw it at prom, she’s been hiding it all year long!”

“Hey!” Ali cried. “Let me go!”

Lauren ripped the glove off Ali’s wrist. “Here it is, girls-” Lauren stopped short.

“She’s got a tattoo! Cool!” someone in the crowd shouted.

Lauren’s face turned pink. “There was a scar there last weekend at prom!”

“Tattoos are scars,” Beth offered.

Ali pulled her wrist back and shoved what was left of her sandwich into her purse. “When are you going to leave me alone, Lauren?” Ali snapped, putting the glove back onto her wrist.

“You have a lesbian crush on her?” someone from the audience asked. The small audience laughed and Lauren looked furious.

“Can I see your tattoo, Ali?” a girl in the crowd asked.

“Sure,” Ali said, standing up, tugging her glove back down. “It’s still kind of raw and healing, though.”

“Cool! What does it say?”

* * *

Katie insisted that Ali walk at graduation, the same night that Ali had to make up her mind about which college to choose as they did laundry down the street at the laundromat.

“I can’t believe I’ve gotten into SUNY, University of Ohio, and William and Mary,” Ali muttered. “I have to make up my mind this weekend.”

“Which school are you leaning towards?” Katie asked.

“Well… if we can get the money from my college savings account, I could go to William and Mary, but I’d still have to take out some student loans,” Ali said. “I loved the campus when we took the train down there during spring break. But it’s so far away.”

“And Ohio?”

“I just applied there because Mom went there for undergrad,” she said. “I didn’t _ love _ the campus. I’m an east-coaster, not a mid-westerner.”

“Yeah,” Katie sighed. Ali hadn’t gotten into NYU, to her disappointment. “So that leaves SUNY up in Albany. It’s a good school, Ali. And it’s not that far away. But don’t you  _ want _ to strike out and leave New York?”

“Well… Am I stupid for hoping that Dad will want to go to rehab and form a relationship with us again? I don’t want to be so far away that you have to do everything on your own when he comes around.”

“I don’t think that’s stupid at all! But go out and have an experience far away from home, right?”

“You came home and transferred to NYU.”

“I know,” Katie said. “But, I went away for a summer, too. I can handle myself, I’m an adult. I’m going into police officer training in September, I’ll keep myself busy.”

“I know.”

“Don’t be afraid to leave, okay? We’ve got text and IM and family minutes on our cell phones, no matter where I go.”

“I know,” Ali said.

“And I’ll come out to visit you on holidays,” Katie added.

“You don’t have to.”

“Just consider it.”

“Okay then...SUNY.”

Katie paused over the laundry they were folding. “Are you sure?”

“Well… we’ll see about the financial situation. Dad kinda screwed over my FAFSA by not cooperating. It’s in-state tuition and a state college. I can afford that.”

“I’ll do what I can to help you, okay?”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do. And I’m paying for a cap and gown so you can walk at graduation.”

“You’re not walking at  _ your _ graduation.”

“Mine doesn’t count either way. I get my diploma regardless of if I walk. You don’t.”

“I think that stinks,” Ali said. 

“I’ll be there with Shawn and the Queens from the Drag Corral and Matthew’s coming, too,” Katie promised. “We’re going to scream like idiots when they call your name.”

“You’re going to embarrass me so bad!”

“I know, that’s kind of the point,” Katie teased. “Then, we’ve got to try to get all your college stuff for your first dorm room.”

“I’m not going to get to take the quilt Mom and I made together,” Ali said glumly.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“Well, look at it this way, it’ll be the start of a whole new life. And I won’t be that far away in Albany, that’s some good news!”

“You know what?” Katie said, putting some folded t-shirts into the laundry sack. “Let’s break into Dad’s apartment and try to find your quilt.”

“Do you think we can get away with it?”

“I think we can!”

Ali and Katie took the next few days to figure out how to break into their father’s apartment. The two girls waited on a Saturday to across the street to watch and wait on their father to come out the front door over coffee. And he did.

“This is it!” Katie cried. They dashed in once he had his back turned. On their floor, they found that the lock hadn’t been changed and their keys worked.

The apartment was messier, and his bottles were piled up in the recycle bin. Ali ignored them and went to her room. Dad hadn’t touched it to her surprise. Her precious quilt was on the bed, untouched.

Ali folded it and stuffed it into the cloth shopping sack, and then took down the embroideries she and her mother had made together, and a few articles of clothes for the summertime that she had missed in their mad dash out seven months ago. Katie was cleaning out her own room, taking down posters and the comic books to take back to their place. Ali looked longingly at the pearls that had once been their mother’s, but the ownership of those items were up for debate, and they were worth a pretty penny. Her father could press grand theft charges if they took those. They didn’t bother to risk it, so they only took things they made or bought themselves.

Ali looked longingly at her childhood apartment as she left: she had some good memories here, but a lot of bad ones, too. There was some comfort in the idea of home, not having to pay bills, scrimp and save, always having new clothes from retail stores not the Goodwill, never having to sacrifice so greatly to have a roof overhead and food on the table. But Ali knew it wasn’t worth it. And her father was losing everything, and it would disappear sooner if he didn’t get his act together.

They flipped off the lights and locked the door behind themselves for the last time.


	21. Grown Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all had a Happy Easter! If not, happy Zombie Jesus Day... Gah, He's not a zombie, He's a licht!

Ali stood in the hallway outside the auditorium, fanning herself with her graduation robe. She felt a little silly, having dressed up, but the orchestra was playing _ Pomp and Circumstance _ as they left. The Queens had come in full Drag, and Ali didn’t mind a bit. Matthew and Katie were there, too, and she was looking for the whole group dusted in glitter.

A hand reached out and grabbed Ali’s arm.

“Katie-” she began, thinking it was her. She turned around to see her father standing there. He looked at her, and she could see he was hungover, and he smelled like gin. “Daddy?” Ali asked, horrified. He had dressed in a suit and tie, and looked like he had shaved. He was still gaunt and haggard, though.

“I didn’t want to miss your graduation,” he said softly. “How many times does your baby graduate?”

Ali didn’t know what to do: she had stopped therapy, but kept up with Al-Anon. They had told her to set firm boundaries and to not talk to him unless he had agreed to go to rehab again.

“I missed you a lot at Christmas,” he said. “It was pretty lonely.”

“Dad, it wasn’t an easy choice.”

“Everything’s going to be fine, now,” he said softly. “I heard you chose SUNY up in Albany.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ali said. She wanted to cry: she had missed her father so much, longed for his love and approval. This hadn’t been an easy year for her. 

“I heard you made a four-point-two weighted GPA this spring. Way to go, sweetheart,” her father said. “I noticed you girls came by and took some of your things, and it made it real. Are you sure you want to stay with Katie and not in your own room? I got a new DVD player. And I’ll get you a new laptop and a minifridge for college-”

“No,” Ali said, although she ached for it. She wanted a new laptop, but putting up with her drunk father for a summer sounded worse than having to work the whole time.

“Come on sweetheart, that apartment you and Katie have has to be awful,” he said. “I know where it is.”

Ali felt a cold chill. “I said no,” Ali responded. “You never listen to me and I never want to go back to that! I’m on my own.”

“Don’t be silly, you’re not! You can’t make enough to survive-”

“I can too,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You need me-”

“I don’t need you,” Ali said. “Unless you’re sober. And you’re not sober right now. Bye, Dad. Call me when you want help.”

She walked away from him, and saw Katie walking out with Matthew and Fifi. “What’s the matter?” Matthew asked, hugging her.

“I just saw Dad,” Ali said.

“Well, forget about him, we’re going to dinner and a drag show!” Fifi announced.

“Are you okay?” Matthew asked Ali as they got into the cab.

“It shook me up,” Ali admitted. He took her hand and squeezed it.

“They do that,” he admitted. “You got us right now.”

* * *

They took Ali to the Drag Corral and sneaked her in that night after dinner, putting a pink glitter wig on her. Ali didn’t go to any graduation parties, she was done with all those high school people, today’s encounter with her father only proved to her that high school kids wouldn’t understand. She was with her people tonight.

The Drag Show was amazing, and Ali spent most of her night dancing and drinking, Katie watching her closely. Around midnight, Katie and Matthew sneaked Ali out of the club. She was so trashed that she didn’t notice how loud she was.

“Ali!” Katie shouted.

“What?” Ali responded.

“You’re being really loud,” Katie whispered.

“Oh!” Ali tried to whisper.

“We don’t want you caught for underage drinking and a drunk and disorderly,” Katie said, putting an arm around her. “That would screw me so hard for Police Training. And they’d put you back in Dad’s apartment pronto..”

Matthew came back from the bodega with a bottle of water. “Come here, drink this,” Matthew said, handing her the bottle. “You are going to be so hungover tomorrow morning.”

“I know,” she whispered. 

“This way to the metro,” he said, taking her hand.

Ali stumbled to the metro stop and found the storage advertisement that said, ‘vacant’ with a picture of Paris Hilton on it hysterical and dropped the bottle of water. Katie guided her away.

Matthew swiped her subway card for her and then carried her down the escalator to wait on the train to Williamsburg. When they got home, Ali was getting the dry heaves and had puked a few times on the walk. Katie took her to the bathroom and draped her over the toilet.

The next morning, Ali woke up with the worst headache of her life and she was still nauseated.

“Remind me never to drink again,” she muttered to herself. 

“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” Matthew said, climbing off the futon.

“Hold on, I’m going to go puke,” Ali said, climbing out of the bed. “Or something else- please still love me!”

She dashed into the bathroom just in time to get a massive, loud attack of diarrhea. She groaned, embarrassed, and was afraid to get up from the toilet.

“Are you okay?” Matthew called, knocking on the door.

“Where’s Katie?”

“At work.”

“Ugh…”

“It’s alright, I know you’ve tried to convince me that you don’t go to the bathroom. But I’ve always known that’s not true… Girls fart too, you know.”

Ali thought she’d die. “Can you go put some coffee on? I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Sure.”

Ali took a shower and got dressed while Matthew went to get some bagels and lox around the corner at the deli, and helped herself to a hot cup of coffee.

“Feeling any better, Als?” Matthew asked, coming in the door with a paper sack.

“Somewhat. Thank you so much for the bagels!”

“I went ahead and got a raisin bagel too, if you want it. You never responded to my text.”

“I didn’t? Where’s my phone?” She sorted through her purse to find her cell, and opened it to find there were several texts and voicemails from her father, too.

She hadn’t anticipated him finding this number, especially after he had shut her and Katie off, but he had found it somehow.

“You’re okay?” Matthew asked, seeing the look on her face.

Ali read through the message. It was mostly incoherent and insulting. Matthew took the phone from her. “Oh, Ali… I’m sorry,” he said, reading the messages. “I’m deleting these, you don’t need to read them.”

“What does it say?”

“That he’s going to spend your college fund on a new boat for himself. I doubt it, though.”

“Dad has a lake cabin in Vermont,” Ali mumbled, rubbing her eye socket.

“I’m sorry, babe. But these look like drunken rambles. Don’t put anything into it.”

All Ali could think about was not having enough money to attend SUNY in the fall. She was going to have to take out student loans, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Let’s get your mind off things,” Matthew said. “Let’s go to the park for breakfast.”

* * *

After breakfast together and shopping for Katie’s graduation present, Katie didn’t come home. Ali was worried, but she got a text from Shawn that Katie was going to be home late, she was with him.

“This gives us extra time to wrap this,” Ali said, holding up the books she had picked up from the used bookstore. She and Matthew used the wrapping paper from their paper sack from breakfast and cut up some fashion magazines.

“What do you want to do, now?” Matthew asked.

“Well, we could watch a movie on my laptop,” Ali suggested.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

They hooked her laptop up to the phone line and downloaded a movie on KaZaA and popped some popcorn. Since the phone cord was so short, they got into the bed to watch.

Ali felt a little weird about being in the same bed as Matthew. They hadn’t gotten to this point, yet. Last night, Katie had insisted he sleep on the futon, and with Ali’s schedule, she and Matthew didn’t spent a lot of time alone.

Matthew seemed a lot more comfortable at first than she was as they started watching  _ SAW. _ Ali sat with his arm around her shoulders and the bowl of popcorn in her lap, and she felt stiff and nervous.

“What’s wrong? Scaring you already?”

“No… We’ve just never been in bed together before.”

Matthew chortled. “That’s cute,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m more nervous than you.”

“You’re nervous?” Ali asked.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well, I’m just a stupid high school kid-”

“Not anymore, you graduated yesterday.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he admitted.

“You do? I’m scared of how… I don’t like how I feel when you’ve got so much more experience than me.”

“Experience?” Matthew laughed. “You think a lot of me.”

“Hey!”

“I mean, you think I’m more experienced than I am. I guess I’m a natural with girls!”

“Har har.”

“No, really. I know you’re scared because you think I expect something out of you.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t even know what to expect. I know you’re a virgin, you talked about it at group. I didn’t share this at group, either, but… I am too.”

“You are?” Ali was shocked. “I didn’t think-”

“I don’t hang out with a lot of different girls because I didn’t think they’d understand my family.”

Ali sighed, hugging him. “I thought the same thing about mine,” she said, sliding her fingers through his scalp, tangling her fingers in his hair. 

“Do you think I’m a complete dork, now?”

“I’ve always thought you were a dork,” Ali laughed. “But I like you even more now.” She lifted her head to kiss him, and his lips seemed tense under hers. “Did you… did you think I wouldn’t understand?”

“Well, kind of,” his eyes looked dark. “I was expecting you to make fun of me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because… normal guys are supposed to have as much sex as possible as  _ soon _ as possible. I’m a complete tool, being a virgin at age nineteen.”

“You’re not a tool!” Ali cried, kissing him again. “Jason made me feel so stupid and awful for being a virgin, he didn’t value my experience at all. I want you to have a special first time, too. I hope you feel the same way about me.”

“I do. You don’t like me any less?”

“Matthew… I love you. I know that’s a big leap, but I do. I trust you.”

“You trust me?” he murmured.

“Do you love me, too?”

“Yeah, I do. I love you too, Alison.”

* * *

Ali and Matthew made out in the bed and snuggled together, getting past a few bases. They were so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t hear the door unlocking until Katie barged in.

“Hey, what are you doing with my sister!” Katie barked. “Are you under the covers with her?”

They both jumped a mile.

“Katie, it’s not what you think- wait, what have you done to your hair?” Ali shrieked.

Katie burst out laughing. “I can’t believe I just walked in on you two!”

“Uh… I gotta catch that train back to Scarsdale,” Matthew said, turning pink. He pulled his t-shirt on over his head and jumped out of the bed. He packed up his things. “Ali, can we say good-bye outside?”

“Sure,” Ali said, re-hooking her bra behind her back and slipping into a pair of flip-flops. “Katie… your hair!”

“Do you like it?” Katie asked, running her hand through it, grinning.

“It so short!”

“I can still get it into a ponytail!”

“Um, Ali? Bye, Katie. Thanks for letting me stay this weekend,” Matthew said, avoiding Katie’s eyes.

“You’re welcome. And thanks for violating my little sister. Bye.”

Ali took Matthew’s hand and they went downstairs. “That was embarrassing!”

“I know,” Ali agreed. “Do you want me to go to the Metro with you?”

“No, I can find my way. I had a good time this weekend.”

“Me too.”

“Even when you got drunk and hungover.”

Ali laughed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After kissing good-bye, Ali watched him walk down the street to the corner and disappear. She went back upstairs.

“So how far did you and Matthew get? Do I need to get you back on birth control?” Katie chortled.

“Well… maybe.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. I like Matthew a lot and… we said we loved each other tonight.”

“You did?” Katie cried. “Oh my God!”

“Yes,” she blushed. “Oh, Katie, I love him! He’s everything and I just want to spend the next few hours just planning our lives together!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. But I’m so happy for you!”

“You’ll be my maid of honor at my wedding, right?”

“You? Get married first? Fat chance I’ll let that happen!”

“Hag!”

“Ass!”

The two burst into giggles together.

“So let’s discuss this police-style haircut… over your graduation present I got you today.” Ali handed her the wrapped books.

“Aw, Ali, thank you!” Katie cried, and opened the present. “Oh, books!”

“Mystery books, your favorite!” Ali sang. 

“Dennis LeHane… James Patterson… I love them! But who’s this?” She held up the third book.

“Well, the Matthew said he liked this guy’s work, Richard Castle. Have you heard of him?”

Katie flipped through. “Hmm, I’ve heard he’s okay.”

“Me too. Can I borrow it after you’re done with it?”

“If you have time… guess what, the hostess at the steakhouse quit, we need a new one, and I put your name in.”

“Katie, thank you!” Ali cried.

* * *

The summer passed and the girls worked hard at the Steakhouse. Ali’s birthday was a late-night cake-cutting in the alley behind the restaurant with the cooks, bartender and waitstaff on a Sunday. Katie gave her a present of a shower caddy and a toothbrush holder, a laundry basket, and some stackable crates to store her things in her dorm room when they got home that night that Shawn had been holding onto. Ali was lucky to make it to mass on Sunday mornings when she got the brunch shift, too.

“We’ve got an early morning tomorrow,” Katie said as Ali assisted her with rolling silverware for Monday’s lunch shift.

“Why?” Ali muttered.

“We’ve got to close out your college fund, get Dad’s name off of it.”

“Wait, what?”

“We have no idea what’s left in your college fund. Chances are, Dad’s dipped into it. He tried to dip into mine this semester.”

Ali swallowed. “Okay.”

“Your name’s on it, mine’s not. So, now that you’ve turned eighteen, you can close it. But I’ll go with you for moral support. Right?”

“Right,” Ali sighed. “I can’t believe we have to be so afraid of Dad. I'm still pissed that he came to my graduation hungover.”

“Me neither. But just be prepared: he could have taken your name off the account already.”

“I know.”

The girls got up early the next morning and joined the subway rush to the city, stopping at their father’s bank. They were seen immediately.

“Alright, Miss Beckett, thank you for coming to us with your banking needs. How can I help you today?” the officer at the bank asked, adjusting her glasses.

“I want to take my father’s name off my college savings account,” Ali said.

“I can’t do that.”

“Listen,” Katie began quietly. “We don’t know what our father’s finances are like, and we don’t trust him with them. This money, is it legally Ali’s?”

“It is not until her eighteenth birthday.”

“Which happened yesterday,” Ali said.

“Oh, good! Happy birthday, dear!” The lady said. “If you’re worried about where the funds are going to go, let’s do this: you can close the account and open a new one in your name, without your father’s social security number on it.”

“Alright, let’s do that,” Ali said. “But I’d like for my sister to be co-signer on the account. Now, how much is in there?” Ali braced herself. Her parents had saved up about a hundred thousand for Katie’s college and had for her, too, but Ali wasn’t sure if ianything was left in the account.

“Let’s see,” she typed on the computer. “Well… we’re looking at almost eighty-two thousand left. There’s been a few withdrawals already.”

Ali nodded, sighing. “Good to know. Let’s close out the account and put it into one under our names.”

Ali and Katie walked out of the bank an hour later, and Ali felt miserable.

“So, let’s not panic,” Katie said. “We’re looking at like, twenty-thousand a year. This is good!”

“But costs were going to be like, twenty-three thousand a year,” Ali moaned. “I’m going to have to work.”

“I’ll help you with that,” Katie offered.

“No way!” Ali cried. “You’re practically going to be living at the poverty-level in New York on a recruit officer’s salary!”

“I can economize,” Katie replied. “I’ll keep on serving after I get out. And then I’m applying to detective school as soon as I can. Detectives make a  _ lot _ more. And then, I can help you out more junior and senior year year.”

“No, I’m going to see about getting on the work-study program up there. At least I’m not going to have to take out student loans.”

“That’s a plus,” Katie agreed. “You’ll be okay even if you do have to take out loans.”

“What about the summers?”

“You’ll stay with me. Or get a job at the Hamptons as an au pair or something, we know people. Or I’ll get you back on at the steakhouse, and you can serve, that’s way better money! The boss loves you!”

“I’ll save everything I can this summer,” Ali decided. “But you’re right, I’m going to be fine.”


	22. College Life

In July, Katie got the news she had made it past all the interviews and background checks: she had made it into the NYPD training academy for September.  
Everything seemed to be going well until they got a call from their father on Ali’s voicemail.  
“It seems I got another drunk and disorderly,” Ali muttered, coming into work, their code for calls from Jim. “He found out about the college fund we closed. He thinks we’d mismanage it.”  
“Oh boy,” Katie sighed. “We won’t. We’ll surprise him. I’ll make sure of it.”  
“Katie… do you think that we could try changing our last names?”  
“Ali, that’s ridiculous,” Katie said. “What would we change it to?”  
“Houghton. For Mom.”  
Katie’s expression softened. “No. He’d find us in a heartbeat. He’s a lawyer, you know.”  
“This bites,” Ali muttered bitterly. “We can’t escape him.”  
“We will one day,” Katie promised. “We kind of already have. But… you’re eighteen now, and he can’t legally touch us. If we want to stay away, we can. We’ve got each other.”

* * *

Ali’s move to SUNY in Albany had to be arranged. Matthew came down with a minivan borrowed from a friend’s mom and Shawn offered his little VW bug. They managed to find close parking spots near the girl’s apartment and the process of moving down Ali’s things, that she and Katie had been boxing up all week, started.  
They started the three-hour drive to Albany together. Matthew drove the minivan, which actually wasn’t filled with as many things as Ali thought, and they ended up taking it up to Albany.  
The Freshman dorm wasn’t so bad. There was air conditioning, which Ali was thankful for in the late summer heat and humidity. There were “community bathrooms”, as in all the girls on the floor had to share one giant bathroom together, and Ali had found shower shoes at Old Navy and splurged on a shower caddy at Target. Ali’s trunk from Goodwill and things were quick to unload and arrange in her tiny room. Ali picked out her side of the room since her roommate hadn’t arrived yet. Ali felt the excitement of starting this part of her life in college. She had never lived outside New York City and most of the girls on her floor were freshmen, too, all experiencing moving away from home for the first time.  
“This mean you’re closer to me,” Matthew whispered in her ear when they all sat down for a celebratory round of cold sodas from the vending machines.  
“I can’t wait,” Ali murmured back.  
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, Als,” Katie sighed. “My apartment’s going to feel awfully empty without you there.”  
“Aren’t you dating Eric from the steakhouse?” Ali snorted. “You won’t be that lonely!”  
“Yeah, I will,” Katie sighed.  
“I’ll keep her company,” Shawn promised.  
“Thanks for bringing me up here, you guys,” Ali sighed. “What would I do without you?”  
“Let’s not entertain that thought,” Katie said.  
Matthew and Shawn went for a pizza for dinner and left Katie and Ali alone in the dorm.  
“Look, I can be there in three hours if you need me,” Katie promised. “Go down to the student health center and get on birth control as soon as possible, okay? I know things are going to happen eventually with Matthew in your dorm room. And you can call me anytime, okay?”  
“Of course,” Ali agreed. “Same for you!”  
“I needed that,” Katie agreed. Ali thought she was going to cry. If Katie cried, Ali would cry, too. “And text messages are welcome. Always.”  
“Yeah. I’m going to go get a job once I can. I’ll try to get on as a server somewhere.”  
“Not Hooters, I hope!”  
“No, not Hooters!” Ali laughed. “Could you imagine me in that Hooter’s Girl uniform?”  
“You’d get so many numbers!”  
“I know, right!”  
“It’s going to be so quiet when I get home from Academy,” Katie sighed.  
“That’s a good thing. I won’t distract you, you have a lot to learn.”  
“You do, too!”  
“Yeah, I do.”  
“And you’ll tell me if Dad tries to contact you. Don’t take any money from him, no matter how much you might like to have it. Call me first for money.”  
“I will.”  
“Just remember to have fun, too. Don’t forget, you worked hard to get here.”  
“How do I have fun without you?” Ali sighed, and tears rushed to her eyes.  
“Same here!” Katie respond, wiping her own eyes. The two hugged and cried together.

* * *

Ali’s first semester in college went pretty well. Without the weight of having to deal with an abusive father, having a best friend/sister who was there for her, an Auntie Fifi, and a boyfriend who adored her, she was able to focus better on school. She made friends and got a job at a campus pub as a waitress, and managed to befriend a few upperclassmen who were in sororities. They liked Ali, and they tried to get her to consider sorority Rush in the spring semester. She took a ballet class, and took part in some aerobics-type classes, too. She realized she was out of shape.  
Ali invited Matthew up for the Fall break, and her roommate went to a BnB in the Hamptons with her boyfriend. Ali and Matthew ended up consummating their relationship that weekend, and it was perfect to Ali. The first thing she did after Matthew fell asleep (and she got dressed) was ran to the stairwell and texted Katie that they did the deed. Katie called her immediately and Ali gushed about how amazing her first time was. Katie was happy for her, but a little sad that her little sister had just passed a major milestone in growing up.  
She ended up going to stay with Matthew and his aunt in Scarsdale for Thanksgiving when her dorm closed. Katie was working hard in Police Academy and Ali went down to see her that Saturday. Her sister looked leaner than ever. They spent the afternoon shopping and went to see Fifi at a drag show.  
For the first full week of winter break, she stayed with Shawn to visit all her old friends in Al-Anon. Katie was living in the NYPD Training Academy as a Recruit Officer, and apparently killing it. Ali got the news that day that she had passed all her classes with a 3.7 GPA her first semester. On Christmas Day, Katie came home to see Shawn and Ali, and they had a cute little Christmas party at the Drag Corral. The next two weeks, Ali went to Scarsdale to stay with Matthew and his aunt again until the next semester started.  
When school started again, some of Ali’s friends asked her to go through Rush with them. Matthew told her he thought Greek life was stupid and buying your friends, but Ali wanted to have that to fall back on. Her mother had been a Chi Omega at Ohio, and had loved every minute of it. She sadly wished she had her mother’s Chi O gear now, but that was in storage somewhere in Manhattan. Katie told her to do what felt right and it Matthew couldn’t handle it, it was his problem, not Ali’s.  
Ali went and dressed in her best church frocks, mingled with the girls in their Rho Chi group, and then they went around to all the campus houses. The rules for Rushees was so strict that they weren’t allowed to go out and get drunk, especially not with other girls in sororities that week. And girls who were known for partying were frowned upon by most of the sororities.  
When Ali got to see the expected dues for sorority membership, she freaked. There was no way to pay these dues, in the thousands. On the last night of Rush, Ali had gotten invited back to seven houses, including Phi Mu, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Beta Phi, Alpha Delta Pi, Delta Gamma, and Tri-Delta. Ali and her Rho Chi narrowed it down to three houses, Pi Phi, Delta Gamma, and Phi Mu, that she could visit on the last night of Rush, and Ali wore a little black dress and heels with a borrowed pearl necklace from her Resident Advisor. She missed her mother’s pearls and wished she could wear them tonight for good luck. Instead, she wore Shawn’s pearl bracelet and Katie had let her have a pair of silver earrings from an ex-boyfriend until she got out of Academy.  
Ali went through Rush, and down to Sorority Row, where she went through the last night ceremonies at each sorority. She wasn’t sure how she could ever afford to join a sorority, and she wasn’t sure she even really fit in with these girls. They all had parents that helped them. She didn’t.  
She was given her opportunity to bid, filing her favorite sorority by rank.  
“It’ll be okay, Ali,” her Rho Chi whispered, patting her back. “Just don’t suicide and put down one sorority. That’s dangerous.”  
Ali considered her options: she chose Pi Phi, Tri-Delt, and Delta Gamma in that order and turned in her bid form. Hopefully, she’d get a bid to any of those houses, but would she actually pledge? Her friends wanted to go out and get drunk. Ali didn’t want that.  
She started her walk back home, considering how she was going to tell her Rho Chi that she wasn’t interested in pledging. She didn’t want to pay dues all semester. The tours of the houses during Rush showed that the girls who got in the first year basically lived in the attics, like the beginning of the musical Annie, in rows of beds with little privacy. Ali didn’t like that. How would she hide the secret of her father’s illness if something happened next fall?  
She passed by a house with all the lights on. It was the Phi Kappa Mu house. She had always seen it walking home from campus late at night, and the girls coming in and out of there were pretty, too. It had been listed in her Rush booklet as a service sorority, and not National Panhellenic Counsel affiliated like the sororities she had Rushed this week. There was a party going on inside, and a few girls standing on the porch, chatting and laughing, holding red Solo cups.  
“Hey! You wanna come in?” one of them called.  
“Me?” Ali asked, pointing at her chest.  
“Yes, you! You were in my Biology 101 class last semester, weren’t you?” she asked. “10 A.M. with Sherman?”  
“Yeah, I was in there,” Ali called back, climbing the crumbling cement steps.  
This house was decent looking on the outside. Not as prissy and fancy as the ones on sorority row, but still.  
“Come on, let’s get you a drink,” one of the other girls said, sticking her hand out. “I’m Kathy, by the way.”  
“Hi, Kathy, I’m Ali. Actually, it’s Alison, but everybody calls me Ali.”  
“Nice to meet you,” the girl said who had called out to her from the porch. “I’m Chloe.”  
“Hi, Chloe.”  
Up close, she could see that Chloe was at least part-Asian. “I’m a TA, even though I’m only a senior, not a grad student, that’s why I was in your biology class,” she admitted.  
“Wow,” Ali said. “What’s your major?”  
“Pre-med.” The third girl was black. Ali hadn’t seen many ethnic faces during rush. “This is Anesha.”  
“Hi,” the girl said, grinning.  
“Hi, it’s so nice to meet you all. Is this a party?’ Ali asked.  
“It’s an interest party, pre-rush. We’re a service sorority. Just like the ones that are doing Rush this week, but we require service hours. Do you want to come in and take a tour?” Chloe asked.  
“I’d love to find out more about you,” Ali admitted.  
“Great!” This way!” Anesha cried. They lead her into the house, where a DJ was playing some tunes, and there was a crowd of girls dancing and laughing, having drinks. Ali asked for a soda, and Anesha and Chloe gave Ali a full tour of the house. While it was in decent condition, it wasn’t like the big NPC sorority houses. There were smaller rooms with bunk beds, no Annie situation going on.  
“And back here, here’s one of the bathrooms,” Anesha said, showing her a line of two shower stalls with the Phi Kappa Mu letters embroidered on the shower curtains. “But be careful,” Anesha said in a low voice. “Our house is haunted, this bathroom especially.”  
“It is?” Ali asked, smirking.  
Anesha’s face smirked too. “They say it was one of the moms who missed her daughter, who was a legacy. She came up here to see her get initiated, and then on the way back home, she got in a car accident and died. She comes here and gives comfort to the other girls in the house.”  
“Don’t go scaring her,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.  
“Aww, that’s kind of nice!” Ali admitted. “My mom died a few years ago, too.”  
“Oh, that’s so sad!” Chloe cried.  
“I’m sorry!” Anesha said, looking embarrassed.  
“No, don’t be,” Ali said. “So what is the number of service hours you have to do to be a Phi Kappa Mu?”  
“Thirty. But everything else is the basically the same,” Chloe admitted. “Pledges only have to do twenty-five. We still have formals and mixers with the fraternities and we do the Greek Lip Sync and a fundraiser for the March of Dimes and we have retreats. I’m the Vice President of Standards and Nesha is our President.”  
“You are?” Ali asked. “I’m honored to get the house tour from the officers! What’s your pledge quota?”  
“Oh, we don’t have one. We usually take on about six or seven a year. We’re a small house, but the dean of Greek life loves us because we have such a high GPA.”  
“What is it?”  
“Well, Nationals says we have to have it at 2.0 minimum, but our house average is like, 3.6,” Chloe said. That was much higher than most of the sorority’s GPA averages on sorority row.  
“What are you dues?” Ali asked, now curious.  
“It’s two hundred a semester,” Chloe said.  
They lead her back down the hallway to the party. Ali kind of liked how old and converted this house was. It was like a pre-war building in SoHo, with beautiful lattice work and moulding.  
“Hey! Ali! I’ve been looking for you!” Kathy called, bring up an unopened bottle of soda to Ali. “Here! I hope this is okay.”  
“It’s great,” Ali said.  
“Come here, this the volunteer wall,” Kathy said, leading her over to a wall in the kitchen. She showed her a giant wall painted with blackboard paint. There were about twenty boxes drawn in chalk with different charities on the wall, and neat, tidy lines drawn in chalk for their names of different girls to sign up. “And we’ve just gotten a new refrigerator, see, it’s huge! We just redid the kitchen, but we love it, personally!”  
“This is a cool house. Is it expensive to live here?” Ali asked, admiring the tile backsplash on over the kitchen counter and the oven.  
“No, not really. One of the founding members of our sorority was a dean here at SUNY, and when she died, she left the house to us, so we don’t have a mortgage. We just have insurance and an emergency fund for the house. It cost about thousand a semester to live in the house.”  
“Wait, what?” Ali asked. Living in the dorms was much more expensive than that!  
“Yeah, we only pay two-thousand a school year. You can live here in the summers too, if you want to take summer classes for like, five hundred. It’s a good deal. We’ve kept the house up pretty well. Some of the frats, when they run out of chores for their pledges, send them over here to work on our house.”  
“What’s pledging like?”  
“Well, we don’t haze, we’ve agreed to an anti-hazing policy, but you do have to complete twenty-five hours and have a 2.0 GPA to join. Trust me, if you just spend like, two hours a week volunteering, you can get the twenty-five easy. I assume you did okay in the fall semester with grades?”  
“I did. I got a 3.7.”  
“Oh, that’s great! Do you know what you want to major in?”  
“I’m thinking I want to go into social work or pre-law. I’m really leaning towards social work, like becoming a marriage and family therapist?”  
“Oh cool!”  
“Right now, I’m undecided. What’s your major?”  
“Engineering. I want to go into Quantum Physics and my dream job is working for NASA.”  
“That is so cool,” Ali admitted.  
She was beginning to like these girls more and more.  
“If you pledge, you’re going to have so much fun. We treat you like princesses, and there’s goodies and candy and present weekly from your guardian angel and your big sister family. I wish I could pledge all over again, it was so fun! Oh, and here’s our dining room!”  
Ali looked at it, and it rivaled any of the big-name sorority’s things.  
“I hope you come out for our Rush,” Kathy said.  
“I’ll look into it,” Ali replied. “What’s the schedule for it?”  
“We’ve got a print out on the front table.”  
“Great! I’ll pick one up before I leave.”  
The DJ starting playing Cotton-Eyed Joe on the loudspeakers, and Kathy rushed into the crowd to join the girls in the sorority, who started doing an upbeat line dance. Ali watched them for a moment, and watched them repeat the same dance moves in a row, and she ran up and joined in.  
Ali knew that she wouldn’t accept her bids the next day, just to get a chance at rushing Phi Kappa Mu. On her way home, she texted Katie immediately.

* * *

Ali Rushed Phi Kappa Mu, and they gave her a bid. She was one of eight girls to get one, and she couldn’t have been prouder to pledge them. She started her volunteer work immediately, and had a plethora of charities to choose from, and there was always a sister driving. She bonded with a sophomore named Kiersten, a short blonde gymnast who was majoring in Exercise Science and cheerleader for SUNY with curly hair from Minnesota. The Big Sis/Lil Sis reveal week was incredibly fun with Ali getting her dorm room door plastered in Phi Kappa Mu cut outs and designs one night while she was out, and presents left for her nightly with the sorority letters on them and more candy than she could ever consume in a semester, mysterious unsigned notes from her Secret Big with "clues" to her identity. On the Saturday of the Big Sister reveal, Ali was given a tiny shoe and told to find the other one. All the sisters were laying down on the floor of the meeting room with blankets over their heads with their feet sticking out, all wearing the other shoe. Ali found the matching size 5 Steve Madden heel she had been handed, and she pulled the blanket off the girl. It was Kiersten, grinning up at her.  
"I had the feeling it was you!" Ali cried.   
"Yeah, it's me!" Kiersten cried. "I'm so excited to be your Big!" She enveloped her in a hug and they joined the other sisters who had found their Littles.  
Kiersten and Ali volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club in downtown Albany, where Ali taught ballet and dance once a week, and she loved the kids she taught on Wednesdays and Thursdays every week. She easily surpassed her twenty-five hours within the first half of the semester. Kiersten also took Ali to a few fraternity parties and clubs to dance and party. Ali was so happy with her big sister and she knew she had chosen the right sorority.  
Ali got the call she dreaded from Katie one night as she was coming from the club: their father had been arrested for DUI.  
“He’s in the drunk tank right now,” Katie admitted. “I just got a call from my sergeant.” Katie sighed.  
“Ali, is everything alright?” Kiersten asked.  
Ali shook her head and held up a hand. “What does this mean?”  
“He’s facing possible jail time, unless he can pull another miracle out of his… connections. I’m waiting to see what he does when he sobers up.”  
Ali gulped back a sob. She wanted her father to get sober, not get put in jail for his drinking. She wasn’t sure how Katie would look to her training officers with a father in jail.  
“I just wanted to make sure you knew what was going on,” Katie admitted. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night.”  
“Thank you for calling me,” Ali muttered. “I’m coming home this weekend.”  
“No, you’re not. Just let me see what happens when he sobers up and his bail is set.”  
“Shit.”  
“Did you just curse?”  
“Yeah, I did,” Ali admitted.  
“If he doesn’t want to check into rehab, things go back to the way they were, okay? Just remember that. Call Shawn, too.”  
“I’ll stay with him-”  
“Don’t come down, yet. Okay?”  
“Alright,” Ali whispered.  
“I love you.”  
“I love you too,” Ali choked out.  
“Ali, what’s happening?” Kiersten asked, concerned.  
Ali’s tears fell. “I try to act like my only family is my big sister and she’s training to be a police officer, but she just called me to tell me that our dad was… arrested. DUI.”  
Kierstens arms enveloped Ali’s frame. “Oh, honey! You said your parents were dead!”  
Ali shook her head. “No. I just disowned my dad because he can’t stop drinking. Will you keep it a secret? Not even tell Vanessa, your big sister?”  
“Of course, I will!”  
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to keep secrets like this- I haven’t seen him since I graduated high school, and… and I moved in with my sister my senior year to get away from him, and... he’s not well.”  
“But… is your mom alive too?”  
Ali shook her head. “No. She died when I was freshman. I can’t believe it’s been so long!”  
“Do you want to spend the night in the House? Madison’s at her boyfriend’s tonight, you can sleep in her bunk.”  
“Okay...”  
Kiersten sneaked Ali into the house through the backdoor so that they wouldn’t run into any sisters that were in that night, and they climbed the back stairs up to the third floor, where Kiersten’s room was. After Kiersten gave Ali a cold Smirnoff Ice to drink and Ali washed her face, Ali climbed up on the top bunk to go to sleep.  
She didn’t sleep well and checked her phone all night. Around six a.m., Katie texted her that their father was getting his bail set at eight this morning, and his firm had already agreed to pay it up to five-hundred thousand. Ali got out of the bunk bed carefully, and sneaked down the hall to the stairwell, so she could talk to Katie without waking up Kiersten, and called her.  
“They won’t let me talk to him, yet. My sergeant’s letting me out for the day so I can go to the bail hearing, and try to talk some sense into him,” Katie sounded exhausted.  
“I need to be there,” Ali said.  
“No, you don’t. You’ve got school, you can’t miss it.”  
“Yeah, I can.”  
“No. Go to class. I’m going to give him the verbal take-down of his life. Remember the officer who came to find you last year at your job after we left? His name is Pete Malciak, and he called me when Dad got arrested. He’s going to be there at the hearing to testify that Dad has a drinking problem.”  
“But if Dad goes to jail-”  
“It might do him some good,” Katie reminded her.  
Ali gasped in a sob. “I don’t know. Isn’t that going to hurt your chances-”  
“No, it shouldn’t. But, I still love Dad.”  
“I do too,” Ali whispered.  
“We’ll do the best we can, alright? We can’t tie ourselves to Dad, you know? He’s not… I don’t even know what kind of state he’s in right now.”  
Ali sniffed. “Tell me what happens, okay?”  
“I will. I love you. We’re going to get through this, with or without him.”  
“I love you too.”  
Ali sneaked back to Kiersten’s room to get her shoes and her coat to get back to her dorm room to brush her teeth and take a quick shower before classes started. Kiersten was sitting up in the bottom bunk. “Is everything okay?”  
Ali shook her head. “Katie hasn’t gotten to see him, yet, but his bail hearing it set for this morning at nine. She’s going to go to it, and try to talk him into rehab, but he’s got all his law firm partners ready to bail him out. I bet they’re going to get him a plea deal.”  
“The trial’s not going to be for a while, I bet,” Kiersten said. “Ali, did you think we wouldn’t understand about him?”  
“Yeah, I kind of did,” Ali admitted.  
“You’re not your father,” she said. “I get that.”  
“Please, keep it a secret,” Ali begged. “Don’t tell anybody in the sorority, not even Nessa. Promise?”  
“I promise. Do you want a ride back to your dorm?”  
“Please.”

* * *

Ali eagerly awaited the results of the bail hearing that morning. Around ten, Katie texted her: her father got out on bail, and he was getting out on a technicality since the officers in question had administered the breathalyzer one minute too late for the law after the documented time that they had pulled him over on the Long Island Expressway, he had been too belligerent and stubborn to take it. _Leave to lawyers to use the law as a suggestion, not standard rules,_ Ali thought. He was being charged with drunk and disorderly conduct and public intoxication, though. Katie got to see him outside the courtroom, and she had ripped into him about how irresponsible he had been. He had told her, to her face, to “fuck off, you fat, stupid slut” and swaggered out of the courthouse.  
_We need an intervention. I don’t see any other way._ Katie texted.  
_Ready whenever U R._  
A few days later, Katie reported that her father had been put on indefinite leave from the firm, due to “health reasons.” Due to his upcoming trial, he wasn’t supposed to leave the Tri-State area or his bail would be forfeited.  
Katie and Shawn managed to locate an Drug and Alcohol counselor who was willing to be an interventionist, but the night that they had it scheduled was the weekend of the March of Dimes fundraiser for Phi Kappa Mu. They wanted to do all the pre-intervention work on Friday, do the intervention with Jim on Saturday, and see him off to rehab on Sunday, but the March of Dimes ball was Saturday night. Ali knew it would look bad to the pledge chair, Melissa, if she skipped out on the planning and decorating committee she had signed up for, so she called Melissa.  
“Hey, Mel, can I trade out with someone for the March of Dimes fundraiser? I’ve got to go out of town that weekend.”  
“Are you kidding? That’s our biggest fundraiser of the year!” Melissa cried.  
“Is there anything I can do this week? Like on Thursday or something?”  
“No, Ali, there really isn’t. What’s going on that you have to skip out?”  
“It’s a family thing. Can we just leave it at that?”  
“Ali,” Melissa groaned. “Come on! What do I tell nationals when you go up for initiation? That you skipped out on our biggest fundraiser for a family dinner?”  
Ali knew that she had an excellent reason for skipping the fundraiser, but it was too embarrassing to admit that her father was a rambling, stumbling alcoholic who was in trouble with the law to her sorority.  
“Mel, I’ve already completed my volunteer hours and then some, it’s not even spring break! Please, I’ll do some office for the March of Dimes when I get back. It’s not a family dinner, I swear, it’s more of a family emergency. It’s really important, though.”  
“Well… alright. If it’s an emergency.”  
“Oh, Mel, thank you! I promise, I’ll do ten hours for the March of Dimes, and I’ll even run a volunteer group! Thank you, thank you!”  
She scheduled a train, and called Matthew to tell him what was happening.  
“Do you need me to come down to the city?” he asked. “Because I will.”  
“That might be a good idea,” Ali admitted. “I mean, you won’t be a part of the intervention, but I could use you there afterwards.”  
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll call Shawn and come down.”  
Ali packed her duffelbag for the weekend, and Kiersten gave her a ride to the train station.  
“Everybody will understand if you just tell them,” Kiersten insisted. “We’re a tight-knit group, Ali. We know you.”  
Ali shook her head as Kiersten pulled her Mustang into the parking lot. “I don’t even know if he’s going to go to rehab or walk out of the intervention. This could go badly.”  
“We get it, you know?”  
Ali shook her head. “I don’t want to think about telling everybody, I just want my father in rehab. He could die. He could have killed somebody driving drunk, too! He could ruin my sister’s career before she’s even out of Police Training!”  
“What about yours?”  
“I don’t know… He’s got terrible timing.”  
“I know, honey. Now go catch your train and keep me up to date.”  
“I will.”

* * *

Ali met Matthew in Scarsdale and they took the 45 minute train ride into the city together, where Shawn met them and took them back to his apartment, where Katie was waiting with the interventionist from AA, a portly bald man with a ponytail named Alek. The first thing interventionist had them do was write a letter to their father about how much they loved him, and how they were seeing troubling signs in his life, and they wanted him to get better. “Stay focused on the positive, alright girls? No blaming, accusations, or threats.”  
“That’ll be hard,” Katie tried to joke.  
Ali couldn’t laugh.  
Ali tried to pour every feeling and emotion into her letter to her father, begging him to get help.  
They walked through what to expect in the intervention tomorrow, and that sometimes, these interventions didn’t always go as planned. They had to be prepared to see their father walk out the door and what that would mean for them.  
They took a break to go to dinner, and Ali realized she was starving: she hadn’t eaten in since breakfast. She sank into the crook of Matthew’s arm in the booth. He kissed her cheek. “Whatever happens, we’re still together,” he said. “I think this is the right moment to do this.”  
“What about your mom?” Ali asked.  
He shrugged. “She’s getting by. I keep waiting to see what’s going to happen. She forgets she has a son.”  
Ali sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen tomorrow; Dad choosing the bottle over us.”  
He held her, even after the food arrived.


	23. Trying to Get By

Shawn dropped Katie and Ali off at the hotel in New Jersey where they were going to meet their father and Alek. Alek met them there in a small hotel room without a bed, just two couches so they could face him.

The plan was to get one of his partners to meet him for a conversation about bringing him back on, once his charges were dropped.

They had no idea what kind of mindset their father was in, or if he was even sober. Ali took her sister’s hand and squeezed. Katie looked sick herself. They didn’t speak.

There wasn’t a lot of warning when the key card clicked in the door and the door opened: her father and one of his partners was there to drop him off. Dad looked hungover, but he was wearing his sunglasses.

“Girls?”  he asked, looking surprised.

“Hi, Dad,” Katie said, standing up, pulling Ali up beside her.

“Daddy,” Ali added in.

“You two look good,” her father remarked.

“Thank you,” Katie muttered. Ali suddenly felt like the shy, repressed girl again in her father’s house.

“I’m Alek Truvino, I’m an interventionist,” Alek said. “Do you know what an intervention is?”

“I do,” Jim murmured. 

“Have a seat,” Alek offered.

“Can I hug my daughters, first, please?”

“Of course.”

Jim went over to Ali and hugged her first. Ali started to cry immediately. “Alidoodle, it’s good to see you. You know I missed you so much?”

“I miss you, too, Daddy.”

“Katie?”

She hugged their father and tried to hold back her own tears.

“It’s nice to see you, honey,” he said. 

“You too, Dad.”

“Let’s sit down,” Alek said.

They sat down on the couches.

“So, with an intervention, we’ve got your two daughters here to talk to you about your problems with alcohol,” Alek said.

Jim rubbed his face, trying to stay quiet.

“Ali offered to start us out,” Alek said. “Ali?”

Ali got her letter to her father out.

“She’s going to read you a letter about how your drinking’s affected her life, now.”

“Dear Daddy,” Ali began, holding the piece of paper she had poured her heart into with shaking hands. “you were always my best friend when I was a kid. I loved fishing with you in Vermont, and the trips you’d take us on. You were always the best friend I could rely on when I needed a man in my life. And when Mom died, you held us together. But when you started drinking, you’d forget I was there. You started calling me names that really hurt and you stopped listening to me at all, which hurt even worse. Then you’d start leaving bills unpaid, mismanaging our family’s finances, to the point that I had to give up the things I loved the most: dance and winter guard. You started pitting Katie and me against each other, and then you abandoned me. I went a little insane and tried to kill myself because I thought I was worthless. Katie came back and we fixed our relationship, but you didn’t. You’ve also hit both of us, and that is unacceptable. Katie took on the job of being my only parent and looking out for me, but she’s too young to have to do that. When you kicked her out, I had to go with her to stay safe, because I knew your home wasn’t safe any longer. I had to grow up, and I couldn’t be a normal kid my senior year of high school because I had to cut you out of my life. Your behavior almost kept me from finishing high school and I just barely got into SUNY, but I did it because Katie helped me and pushed me. I wouldn’t be the person I am without her. I had to hide that we were homeless for a few months, crashing at our sponsor’s apartment, and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do so far. We’ve done a lot without you in our lives, and while we’re proud of ourselves, we still want you. You dipped into my college fund, and we just barely got out it out of your control before I started college. But I did it all without you. I hate that I haven’t had you in my life for over a year. I miss the man you once were: strong, a rock, someone I could depend on. When people ask me who my hero is, I have to tell them it’s Katie, when I used to say it was you. I would be so proud of you if you made a commitment to living without the crutch of substances. If you don’t, I can’t allow you into my life any longer. You’ll be dead to me until you want to get better. It’s going to be difficult on me, but I still have Katie, and the little adopted family. Please don’t choose alcohol over me any longer. I know you can be a better man. I love you. Ali.”

Ali looked up from her letter at her father, who was staring at the coffee table between them, stone-faced. She could see it through her tears that he was trying to be as still as possible.

“Thank you, Ali,” Alek said as she lowered her sheets of paper. Katie took her hand and squeezed it.

“Can I say something?” Dad began.

“No, not until your daughters are finished saying what they need to,” Alek said. 

“I’m not going to sit around and listen to Katie’s side, because all she’s going to do is put me down,” Dad continued, ignoring Alek.

“Everyone, let’s lower our voices, an intervention is supposed to come from a place of love,” Alek said.

Katie wiped her nose with a tissue and picked up a piece of paper, but Dad stood up.

“Dad, no!” Ali cried. 

“I’m not staying for this,” he replied and stormed out of the room.

“Daddy, stop!” Ali shouted, darting up to run after him. “Please!”

He trudged towards the elevator, ignoring her. 

“Daddy!” Ali shouted.

“Alison, I can not listen to Katie be insufferable and self-righteous. You’ve made your choice. Thanks for kicking me out of your life!“ he responded, tapping the elevator button furiously.

“Please listen to what she has to say, you don’t even know-”

“She’s a spoiled, angry, violent little shit-”

“She is not!” Ali shouted.

“Alison,” Alek said from down the hall, softly.

She knew: she wasn’t supposed to fight him. Fresh tears poured down her face. “Bye, Dad. I love you, and when you’re ready to get sober, let me know and I’ll be there. Until then… don’t even attempt to contact me.”

She turned and went towards Alek, not looking back at her father. She heard the elevator ding, and tried her damnedest to not look behind her.

* * *

“I wish I had a car to drive you up to Albany,” Katie sighed the next morning after Ali and Matthew got to brunch from an early Mass. She had stayed late to talk to Father Murphy, who had been a comfort. Ali’s eyes were swollen from all the crying she had done. Alek had helped as much as he could with counseling after the intervention, but encouraged the girls to get back into therapy after the day’s events.

“Me too,” Ali admitted as Matthew pulled out her chair. 

Fifi was sitting with them, looking tired from the night of drag. “My princesses, this is all part of the recovery process. He’s in denial right now. But you two… such an example for us all.”

“Yeah, you definitely are,” Matthew agreed. “I wish I had brother I was as close to as you two are.”

“I’ll go ahead and order some orange juices,” Katie offered. “It seems wrong to get mimosas right now.”

“It really does,” Ali agreed.

After brunch, Katie and Ali had a sad good-bye at the train station, and promised to call each other the moment Ali got back to Albany. Fifi insisted that she call her as well, and Ali promised. She and Matthew bought their train tickets and waited together.

“I know I’m going to be in a lot of trouble with my sorority sisters because I skipped the fundraiser for this, and I have nothing to show for it,” Ali said.

“Don’t get so upset about it. It’s just a sorority, too,” Matthew said.

“What?” Ali asked, surprised.

“I don’t get it,” he admitted. “How you can be best friends with all those people at once.”

“Well, we’re not,” Ali said slowly. “But I know I can rely on them.”

“I think Greek life is just… it’s overrated. I’m surprised you’re doing this.”

“Why?”

“They’d blackball you in a heartbeat if they knew you’ve been homeless.”

“I was  _ really _ homeless!” Ali scoffed. “I wasn’t sleeping on the streets-”

“They’re all financed by their families-”

“And I’m not?” she asked, surprised. 

“Well, you’re lucky.”

“My father, my sole surviving parent, just walked out of my life yesterday and you call that ‘lucky’?”

“I’m not going to fight with you, Alison,” he growled.

He never called her by her full name unless he was angry or they were fooling around. Sometimes, she got the feeling that Matthew resented her for having a college fund to fall back on when it came to college and they had had an argument over her pledging a sorority, and how it would monopolize their time together. He was on scholarships, student loans, and worked crappy serving jobs to pay for his tuition and lived at home with his aunt, and he didn’t have time for things like fraternities. It was tough to clear out a weekend, and they had to plan pretty far in advance to visit each other. But right now was not the time for Ali to put up with him being upset about her being in a sorority and talk down about them. “Then don’t say bad things about my friends.”

“And you don’t gab with your sisters about the things I do that you find annoying?”

“I don’t!” Ali cried, although she had told Kiersten about the fights they had had over her going Greek. She realized she had just lied to him, but she wasn’t going to admit it, not yet. “They’re my family away from home. That’s hard to find.”

“You’ve got a family with me, Shawn, and Katie. And you’ve only known these girls like, two months. I can’t believe you’d become so close to them in such a short time that you’d choose them over me-”

“I need girl time. No offense, but you’re not a girl, I can’t have that time with you. And we do good work, too! I’m proud of that!”

“You can volunteer any time, why do you need a sorority to help you do it?”

“Because it’s fun. I thought you said we weren’t going to fight over this.”

“Okay fine, we won’t.”

They sat in the waiting area in angry silence.

“Why can’t I have friends outside of you?” Ali asked.

“Because I think they’re going to change you. That’s why.”

Ali didn’t have a comeback for that. They rode the rest of the way to Scarsdale speaking in short, clipped, angry sentences. When the train stopped, Ali tried to put her anger aside as she and Matthew said goodbye to each other. She had had enough of unhappy goodbyes for the weekend. “I still love you, even if you don’t like that I’m in a sorority,” she said, hugging him.

“I just don’t want to see you hurt by them,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she murmured. He kissed her goodbye.

“Text me when you get back to school,” he said.

“I will. Bye! Tell your Aunt Maisie hi from me!”

“I will!”

When she got back on the train, she texted Kiersten that she’d need a ride back to campus, asking her if she could pick her up, and went to get something to eat from the food car.

When she arrived in Albany, Kiersten was waiting for her.

“How did it go?” she asked, eagerly.

“With my dad? He walked out. The weekend was useless, he’s not ready to go to rehab,” Ali admitted bitterly. “And my boyfriend and I got into a fight about my pledging Phi Kappa Mu while waiting on our trains.”

“I’m sorry,” Kiersten whispered, hugging her. “You’ll be alright, you’ve got me.”

“Yeah,” Ali sighed. “I’m sorry to burden you.”

“It’s no problem,” Kiersten said. “I promise. Tell me all about it on the way home.”

* * *

Ali spewed the whole story about the fight with Matthew in the train station to Katie when she got back to her dorm room. Katie listened patiently.

“If he can’t handle you doing the things you like, that could mean a lot of trouble,” Katie admitted.

“I know,” Ali mumbled. “I wish this were easy to solve.”

“It’s not. This is way relationships are. If he doesn’t like this part of your personality, that you’re comfortable in a sorority setting, it’ll always be there.”

“Do you think we’re going to break up?”

“I don’t know, honey. I hope not. That’s up to you and Matthew, not me.”

“Do you hate that I’m in a sorority?”

“What? Why are you asking me that?”

“Because he made it sound like they’re all shallow...  _ bitches _ ,” she said cautiously, “ready to drop me the moment they find out I’m not perfect and I don’t have a perfect past.”

“You’ve always been the girly-girl type, Ali. That’s something about you that’s just like Mom, and Mom loved her sorority days in Chi O. It doesn’t surprise me that you want to be in a sorority like she was. And if you’re having fun and enjoy it, why not? When it stops being fun, quit. I don’t think any less of you for that, and you’re doing good work. It’s kind of like how you insisted on doing color guard instead of volleyball like I wanted when you got to high school. You’re your own person, you’re not my clone that has to do everything I do. And you’re damn good at being you. The person you’ve turned into, I wouldn’t change that for the world. If Matthew has a problem with that, that’s on him, not you.”

Leave it to her sister to make her feel better about her choices. “Thanks, Katie. I love you. You’re pretty freaking special yourself.”

* * *

Ali got some dirty glances when she went to meeting on Monday, waiting outside the meeting hall with her pledge class.

“So where were you during the March of Dimes fundraiser?” Jamie asked.

“I went home. Family emergency,” Ali said uncomfortably.

“Well… okay,” Nikki said, grimacing.

When they called the pledges in, Alison took a seat beside Kiersten and Vanessa. Ali had broken down and told Vanessa what was going on with her father. She felt a little guilty that she had missed the fundraiser, but Vanessa said she’s stick up for Ali if she heard anybody complaining. She had to remind herself that she could make up missing the fundraiser.

“Today, I just want to remind everyone, that the formal is going to happen on Tuesday, April 15th at the Rainbow Room in downtown, and the all-sorority retreat on April 10th through 12th, and we’re going to Vanessa’s family cabin in Woodmont. If you need a ride, meet at the house between 4 and 6 on the 10th, we’ll have cars open if you want to sign up to ride with them,” Anesha announced.

Ali dreaded the idea of a retreat, when all of her pledge class didn’t seem impressed that she had missed the most important fundraiser of the semester.

“We need more volunteers for Habitat for Humanity on Saturday,” Melissa said. “And more volunteers for Teen Pregnancy Shelter. And on Thursday, we have the Ronald McDonald house dinner to make…”

After meeting, Vanessa and Kiersten took Ali out to a late dinner of gyros and kabobs, where she told them that she hadn’t felt welcomed by her pledge class tonight.

“I mean, it’s not like I can help that my father got in trouble,” Ali complained and took a bite of her food. “And my boyfriend picked a fight with me as we were waiting for the train.”

“Bring him to formal, I want to meet him,” Vanessa said.

“I have the feeling he’s got all these preconceived notions about us,” Kiersten said. “And if he got to know us, he’d feel differently.”

“A part of me is worried that he’s right about my pledge class. They’re not like us.”

“Just tell them what happened last weekend,” Kiersten offered. “They’ll understand. If they don’t, we’ll get Pledge Master Desiree to knock some sense into them.”

“I’m so sure they’ll forgive me for missing if Desiree tells them to,” Ali mumbled, rolling her eyes.

“It’ll work itself out,” Kiersten promised.

* * *

Ali managed to talk Matthew into coming up for the formal, and she found a pretty red, sparkly strapless dress to wear that night from Vanessa, who was about her size, just had a more voluptuous, rounder butt being half black. She felt good borrowing it instead of going out and buying a brand-new dress, and she had some costume jewelry to wear, too. Kiersten was too little-biddy, a double zero, and Ali couldn’t zip up any of her dresses when she tried them on.

Jamie and Nikki were being influenced by a nasty girl in Ali’s pledge class named Betsy, who seemed to have it in for Ali all together. Betsy never smiled when she spoke to Ali, and glowered instead. 

“I hate her. I want Alison gone,” Ali thought she heard Betsy bitching to them one night. Ali wanted to go up and punch Betsy in the face for that, but she refrained. She wasn’t 100% certain that she had said her name, either. The worst thing she could do was start a fight when she wasn’t certain, it would just look paranoid and like Betsy was the victim. The last thing Ali wanted was to look unstable.

Ali took that as a sign that she needed to find a new therapist here at SUNY, and luckily, the Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program had a center where the students could get some internships with counseling other students.

Ali went to the center and got on with a good therapist named Jane. Ali went weekly, and poured her concerns out, her frustrations, and asked herself constantly if she should stay in Phi Kappa Mu. Jane never told her what to do, but it became clear to Ali that maybe Matthew had been right.

Ali also signed up for as many volunteer projects as her schedule would allow: she felt guilty, and if she proved she could be a valuable volunteer and make up the hours she had missed for the March of Dimes event, she’d prove her worth back. At the Habitat for Humanity day, Ali teamed up with Madison and Brittany, two of the sisters who welcomed her, and they learned about building and using pneumatic drills to assemble a section of wall. Ali was so proud of herself when they lifted it, held it up, and stabilized it by drilling it into the cross-wall.

“We did that!” Madison cried gleefully. The squealed, cheering, high-fiving each other.

“I’m taking a picture!” Ali announced, getting out her phone, snapping a shot.

“Let me get a picture of the three of you,” the contractor said. Ali handed her phone over.

After this, they started on the other section of wall. Betsy arrived with Nikki with lunch for everyone at the worksite and started passing out sodas and sandwiches. When Betsy got to Ali, Ali smiled to be friendly. “Thanks for making lunch,” she said.

“Here,” Betsy said, her smile falling into a snarl. She slapped a sandwich into Ali’s hand.

“Thank you,” Ali said, trying to be polite.

She unwrapped it and it looked like baloney and cheese. Ali took a bite, and it tasted sour and tart, almost. She lifted the bread, to find it splotches of mold on it under the mayonnaise. She shrieked, spitting out her bite, and dropped it. “What the hell?” she cried.

“Everything okay?” Brittany asked.

An evil smirk crossed Betsy’s face.

Ali knew she couldn’t call Betsy out. “I just dropped my sandwich, I’m fine,” she said, picking it up off the ground to throw away.

“Have part of mine,” Brittany offered.

“No, that’s okay.”

Ali wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of a sorority if she’d always have to put up with Betsy’s antics. Ali went hungry that afternoon until she got back to her dorm and called Katie to complain.

Katie offered to come up to Albany and kick Betsy’s ass for serving Ali a moldy sandwich and spreading rumors. “No, that’ll just make it worse,” Ali moaned.

When the retreat rolled around, Vanessa drove Kiersten and Ali to the cabin in her Jeep. Ali confessed some of Betsy’s rumor-spreading and antics, including the moldy sandwich at the Habitat event.

“What a cunt,” Kiersten said.

“Kiersten!” Vanessa cried as Ali’s jaw dropped.

“I’m sorry to use terminology like that, I know you hate it, Ali, but seriously! I think we’ve got to run some interference on that. I’m telling Anesha and Desiree, that’s going too far,” Vanessa said. “You know Desi and I have the same big sister, right?”

“I don’t want to sink to Betsy’s level,” Ali said.

“There’s sinking to her level and then there’s calling her out on acting like an asshole,” Kiersten said. “Which is what she’s doing. She’s bullying you.”

“I can rise above it,” Ali decided.

At Vanessa’s family’s lodge on the lake, the pledges were sent upstairs to the attic, which had  _ Annie _ -style bunks in a row. Ali could do it for a weekend. This loft attic could sleep up to ten people. Vanessa’s father was a doctor who owned a podiatrist clinic chain in White Plains that made a lot of money, and he was getting ready to retire. This lodge was absolutely perfect for the sorority, but Ali had reservations.

“Ali, go downstairs and get some of the extra sheets for us,” Jamie demanded.

“I’ll be happy to get them, just let me put my things up-”

“No. Now!” Betsy barked.

“Fine,” Ali mumbled, dropping her duffelbag.

She went downstairs and Vanessa gave her the key to the linen closet. When they went upstairs to check on the rest of the pledges, Ali’s things had been moved to the furthest bunk in the loft, and when Ali got to it, she discovered there was a spring popping out of it and the bunk was held together by twine. There were some mean smirks from Betsy’s end of the loft.

“This is some bullshit!” Vanessa cried. “You guys are treating Ali like she doesn’t belong!”

“She doesn’t,” Betsy sneered.

“Hey, watch who you’re talking to,” Vanessa snapped. 

“She’s skipping out on important events, leaving us to pick up the slack!” Nikki snapped. “Princess!”

“I’m not a princess!” Ali shot back, angrily.

“Yes, you are!” Nikki said. “Just because your grandbig is VP of standards-”

“You guys, cool it!” Desiree shouted from downstairs. Desiree ran upstairs. “What the hell is going on up here?”   
“My grand-little is being treated like shit by Betsy and her minions,” Vanessa said. “All because she had some family problems during the March of Dimes ball. Real sisterhood, huh?”

“I’m sorry I came here,” Ali said, picking up her bag and going downstairs.

“Ali! Wait!” Vanessa called, going after her. “You can stay in my room with me and Kiersten.” 

“I want to go home. Is there a bus? Or a train station nearby where I can catch ride back to Albany?” Then, Ali realized that she didn’t really have a home, and she burst into tears.

“No, Ali, don’t leave. We’ll work this out. You’re still my grand-little, we want you,” Vanessa said, hugging her. “Come on.” 

Ali gave in and let Vanessa guide her into the master bedroom suite.

“Come on, let’s get you unpacked,” Vanessa said.

“What happened?” Kiersten asked, concerned.

“Our ‘favorite pledge’ is leading the rest of them against her,” Vanessa said, rolling her eyes.. “She’s staying with us.”

That evening, the juniors all made dinner for the rest of the sorority, and Ali felt miserable. Her pledge class hated her. She didn’t feel like she belong and she wanted to quit. There seemed like nothing she could do at this point to get them to treat her fairly. All the pledges sat together, giggling and laughing, and Ali felt paranoid.

“Oh, honey,” Kiersten sighed, hugging her.

“If something’s going on, you can tell us about it,” Desiree said, sitting down next to Kiersten. “We’re your  _ sisters. _ ”

In Ali’s mind, nobody could ever be a better sister than Katie, though.

After dinner, the sorority went on a hike on a basic trail by flashlight (Vanessa knew the way by heart, and they told ghost stories and freaked out about the forest animals) but Ali felt even more separated from her pledge class.

When they got back, the seniors had set up a candlelight circle.

“This is the moment where we pour out our hearts and all the things bothering us,” Anesha said solemnly. “If you need to speak about it, this is the time. I’ll start, being the President.”

Anesha went on about her great-grandmother, the family matriarch, dying over Christmas, and how difficult it was on her, and how much she missed her, and how hard Rush was to do when she had been through losing a family member. She passed the pillar candle on to Brooke, who talked about breaking up with her boyfriend a few weeks ago and she started to cry, and Ali started to feel sick. She was supposed to pour her heart out to all her sorority sisters? Desiree read a poem that she said described her emotional state of insecurity and how big she was and how she felt so ugly and heavy compared to the other girls, and she talked about how she wished she physically fit in with the others sometimes. Ali felt like the world was collapsing in on her the closer the candle got to her in the circle.  Betsy got the candle, and she bitched about how hard she worked and felt like  _ some  _ people didn’t take the sisterhood that seriously, and that pissed her off.

Vanessa got the candle next to Ali, and she talked about how she was under so much pressure to go to Medical School right out of college, but she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to just yet, and she had a hard time telling her parents. She admitted she wasn’t ready to buckle down and study and work a hundred hours a week, but that pressure was so difficult to deny and she cried at the idea of having to do med school right away. The candle was passed to Ali, who was sitting next to her.

Ali swallowed the lump in her throat. “Well… I guess you’re all wondering what’s going on with me. I honestly thought about quitting tonight, although I don’t want to. But I don’t feel welcome. I skipped the March of Dimes event and that’s made a lot of people mad, but it was a family emergency. I don’t know if you’d call a crisis that’s been going on for so long an emergency any longer… My mom was murdered about four years ago when she was working on a neighborhood initiative commission for the DA’s office in the City. The cops said she was killed by some gang members. It was called ‘Take Back the Neighborhood’ and she was standing up to crime in the city and pissing off the people who pretty much ran things in Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t know if any of you know that about me. My mother was stabbed to death and thrown in a pile of garbage to die, and it was one of the worst things to ever happen in my life. My family got through the initial shock of it, but then we started to fall apart at the seams, I guess. My dad is an alcoholic, now, I don’t know if he dabbles in drugs, either, he’s a lawyer, so probably. It got so bad my senior year, I attempted suicide to get away from him, but I survived. You know this tattoo I have on my left wrist? It’s a cover-up for where I slit my wrist. And my big sister came home to help me out, but my dad didn’t stop drinking. My sister and I ran away from it all my senior year, we ended up crashing on the couch of a friend in Al-Anon, a support group for the children of alcoholics, so I guess you could say we were homeless for a little while, even though we never slept in a shelter or on the streets. And I managed to hide it really well, too. He’s gone to rehab once, and walked out. He tried to get me to come back home, but he’s not been a good parent to me, he’s hit me before when he’s been drunk. And my sister, too,” Ali was crying at this point, and Kiersten and Vanessa both had hands on her back. “It’s really embarrassing that he’s really abusive when he drinks. Home wasn’t safe for me. And everybody hates me because I skipped the March of Dimes Ball, but I skipped it for a good reason: my father got a DUI that week and my sister and I decided to plan an intervention the moment I could get back to the City. We tried to intervene, but Dad walked out after we told him that he was dead to us until he wanted to get sober. So… I’m sitting here tonight, telling you all this when I swore I wouldn’t. Life with an alcoholic parent is really rough, because it’s so unpredictable. I had to cut him off, and it hurts so bad that I only have my sister, my boyfriend, and my Al-Anon sponsor to rely on as family. I’m sorry if I’ve upset people in my pledge class, but I couldn’t help it. I’m trying to do more than my required hours in volunteering to make up for it, but I feel like I can’t win. Especially tonight. I’m still on the fence about quitting.”

“Ali, no!” Jamie cried suddenly. “Did you think we wouldn’t understand if you told us?”

“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Brittany asked. “We can understand.”

Ali looked up, and her gaze fell on Betsy, who looked furious in the dim light.

“I’ve got an alcoholic uncle, his kids lived with us for a long time,” Nikki said. “And it was a lot like what you’re going through. I wish you had said something.”

“I didn’t mean to hide anything or make anybody mad,” Ali admitted, wiping her tears with her sleeve.

“We want you. We really do,” Nikki added. “I’m sorry if we’ve been mad at you, but we understand. I promise. Why don’t you move your things upstairs again? I promise we don’t hate you. We don’t want you to quit.”

“You don’t?” Ali asked, surprised. She sneaked a glance at Betsy. Betsy sure wanted her to quit.

“Yeah, we don’t. Come upstairs and sleep in the loft. We’ll give you a better bed,” Nikki said. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t know that’s what was going on. I’m so happy you’re in my pledge class and we’re going to be sisters at the end of the semester.”

“You are?”

“Of course! Just don’t keep stuff this big from us, okay?” Nikki added.

“Yeah,” Jamie said.

“I’m glad you got that off your chest, Ali. I wish you had told me what was going on when you skipped out, too. Now, let’s pass the candle onto Kiersten, there’s about twelve more people to go,” Anesha said.

After the candlelight was over, all of Ali’s pledge class came up to hug her… all except for Betsy, who had mysteriously disappeared from the lodge.

Kiersten and Vanessa helped Ali bring her things upstairs to the loft, where her pledge class helped her get moved into a bunk with Stacy, an upper West Side girl who was also from the City. Betsy was nowhere to be found that night. They pledges got into a game of Truth or Dare over a few bottles of wine, and the girls got silly drunk before going to bed. Ali felt so much better and much more welcome in her pledge class, finally.

At about six in the morning, the upperclassmen sisters came into the loft with a few pots and pans, screaming and banging the pans to wake the pledges up for the day. They seniors had chocolate chip pancakes on the griddle in the kitchen for breakfast, and the first ones were for the pledges. Ali had a wonderful time that weekend, bonding with her sorority sisters that weekend after the initial blow up of the first night.


	24. Trial by Fire

Betsy seemed to have it in for Ali, still. Jamie and Nikki came to Ali a few times, telling her to stay away from Betsy, Betsy was on the warpath. Ali tried to push it from her mind, and Matthew came up for Spring Formal.

The two went to catch the bus at the House to the Formal destination, the Rainbow Room, a gay club that had rented their ballroom out to the Phi Kappa Mus. Ali tried to steer clear of Betsy, whose eyes were narrowed into slits every time she saw her, but she focused on loving and hanging out with her news sisters in Phi Kappa.

“You’ll come stay with me for a week this summer, right?” Jamie asked Ali as they got some Smirnoff Ice from the bar, and a beer for Matthew.

“If you’ll have me.”

“Of course! We live like two blocks from Lake Michigan in Lake Forrest. Just take the train out to Chicago, and stay for a weekend. It’ll be fun! Or you can fly out!”

“I don’t know if I can get all that time off from work,” Ali admitted. “I’m going to be working this summer. A lot.”

“Maybe just a long weekend. Chicago’s really fun. I promise, I’ll show you a good time,” Jamie insisted. It had come out that Ali didn’t officially have a home base with an alcoholic father and a sister living in the police training academy. Ali just planned on living at the House and working this summer. Jamie had immediately changed her tune with Ali, and they had bonded. Nikki was starting to, as well.

 _Cotton-Eyed Joe_ came on and there was a collective squeal with the sisters. Ali and Jamie dashed to the dance floor to join in.

“You looked like you were having fun out there,” Matthew admitted as he took her out on the floor for a slow dance.

“We have a lot of fun,” Ali admitted. “I’m glad you’re here with me. What do you think of my sisters so far?”

“I thought you only had one,” Matthew grumbled.

Ali felt like she had been punched. “Hey, I didn’t bring you here to assume the worst.”

“I’m not! Just with all that you and Kate have been through, I can’t believe you’d call these people the same thing.”

“So what if I do? We’re sisters in stewardship and hard work. Katie and I are sisters in family. What’s the difference? Look, I didn’t bring you here to fight.”

“I know… Sorry.”

“Let’s just try to have a good time tonight.”

After they slow-danced, Ali got another set of drinks for herself and Matthew and they socialized with the other couples. After the formal was over, they caught the bus back to campus, and Ali and Matthew went with a group of the sisters and pledges and their dates to a hotel where they partied the rest of the night away. Ali didn’t think anything of the drinks until the next day when she got an email from Anesha.

_Look, there’s been some concern that you drank two drinks at the formal. Did you get trashed?_

Who had watched Ali that closely that they noticed the number of drinks she had? She had left the formal sober enough to drive!

_Yeah, I did drink two Smirnoff Ices, I didn’t know that was problem, since we took a bus back to the House and I was not drunk at all. I was perfectly sober through the night._

Anesha wrote her back a half hour later.

_Look, I’m not going to report you to Standards, Nessa and I agreed it’s stupid. This was just a ‘concern’ from a sister._

Ali ground her teeth. _Betsy,_ she thought bitterly. She considered telling Anesha that Betsy still had it in for her and was being an asshole, but she didn’t. She got an email a second later. It was from James Beckett, Esq.

She opened it out of curiosity.

_Ali,_

_I’m writing you this because I’m not sure what else to do. I lost your number, and I’m ready to make a change. I can’t stand being separated from you and Katie any longer, and I’ve realized that I need to give up the drink, if that’s what it takes to win you back. I’m in trouble, honey, and I need help. I’m sorry about the intervention. Please, just call me, Alidoodle._

_Love,_

_Dad_

It was short, and to the point. Ali immediately picked up her phone to dial Katie, and got her voicemail. She was in training, probably. “Katie, it’s Ali. Daddy just emailed me, saying he was ready for rehab, can you call me back? I’m scared something’s wrong. Love you, bye.”

She hung up and rubbed her eyes.

“Als, what’s wrong?” Matthew asked from the twin bed, rolling over.

“Dad just emailed me about going to rehab. What do I do? Call him? Go home?”

“Call him. There’s resources,” Matthew said, sitting up. “I’ll call Shawn.” He got his pants on and went into the stairwell to call Shawn while Ali fidgeted with her father’s number in her contact list.

Ali wasn’t sure what to say to her father. She finally hit the send button.

The phone rang three times, and he answered.

“Jim Beckett,” a gravelly version of her father’s voice answered.

“Daddy?”

“Alison?”

“Yeah, Daddy, it’s me.”

“Well…. How are you, honey?”

“I’m a little shocked,” Ali admitted. “Your email… I just called Katie and left a message on her voicemail.”

“I did, too.”

“Are you alright?”

“I… I don’t know. I had a dream about your mother last night, she came in through the window and handed me my 7mm and-”

“Daddy, don’t you spend another night in that apartment!” Ali commanded, her stomach feeling like a led brick had been dropped into it. “Go check into a hotel and I’ll be there there in a few hours, alright? Don’t do anything drastic until then!”

“Ali, I’m fine,” her father said. “I’m just a bit depressed.”

“Then let’s get you into rehab,” Ali said, shimmying out of her pajama pants to put on a pair of yoga pants. “We’ll find a place, I’m pulling together some resources-”

“This is stupid, I’m sorry about the email-”

“Then I’m hanging up.”

“Ali, no!”

“Daddy, please, let’s get you into a rehab facility. Do you need to check in to the hospital? I can meet you there!”

“I can’t-”

“Daddy, you can. I’m so proud that you emailed me, and I’ll be there as soon as possible, I promise! We’ll get you into a good place-” Ali’s phone beeped, and it was Katie. “Just a second, there’s another call on the line.” She hit the send button again. “Katie?”

“Ali? Are you sure it’s Dad that emailed you?”

“I’m on the phone with him right now,” Ali said.

“Oh God… I saw that he called, but didn’t leave a message-”

“Katie, I’m scared, he said that he had a dream of Mom giving him his 7mm. Just like me with the straight razor. We have to hurry! Can you get home soon?”

“I don’t know, let me check with Sergeant Ortiz for leave. I’ll call you back in a moment.”

Ali hit the send button again. “Daddy?”

There was no response on the line. She hit the button again, and it was dead, too. Ali hung up and dialed her father again, but he didn’t answer. She dialed Alek’s number, and he picked up.

“Hi, Alek, this is Alison Beckett, you were the interventionist for my father a few weeks ago. He just emailed me, telling me he was ready for rehab and I talked to him and he sounds like he’s in danger and I’m scared and-”

“Slow down. I remember you, sweetheart, but I can’t understand you. What’s going on?”

Ali tried to explain. “I’ll try to get down to his apartment immediately. Try to call him back.”

Matthew came back into her room.

“I just talked to Shawn, he’s going to go to the apartment and see if he can calm your father down.”

“Katie said she’d try to get out of the Training Academy. I’m going down to the city,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Matthew offered.

* * *

Ali and Matthew arrived at Pennsylvania Station in the City and immediately took the metro to Ali’s childhood apartment building. When they got up to her father’s floor, the door was open just a bit.

Katie was in the living room with Shawn and Alek, she heard the clinking of empty glass bottles.

“Katie?” she asked. “Where’s Dad?”

“We’re just taking out the empty bottles,” Katie said. “Dad’s taking a shower, now, we’re packing his suitcase.”

“He’s going to rehab?”

“Yes, he agreed to go dry out. I’ve been calling around and not many beds in any of the rehab centers are open on the East Coast right now,” Alek said.

“What does that mean?” Ali asked.

“I found a facility in Texas willing to take him in,” Alek said. “But we’ve got to act fast before he changes his mind.”

“If we take him-” Ali began.

“No, it’s best if you just see him to the airport,” Alek said.

“It’ll mean a lot to him to have you see him off,” Shawn promised. “I’ll make some tea. Or coffee. Whatever you two want, as long as it’s not alcoholic.”

“Tea’ll be fine,” Ali said. “Matthew?”

“Yeah. Tea. We had a late night at the formal.”

“Ali, sit down,” Katie said, holding out an arm. Ali snuggled into her sister’s arm.

“How did he look when you got here?”

“Bad,” she admitted. “He hadn’t showered in a few days and smelled like gin and puke. After I promised him I wasn’t going anywhere, he agreed to take a shower and shave.”

Ali sighed.

“Are things better with your sorority?”

“Yeah,” Ali said, nodding. “For the most part.”

Dad came out into the living room in fresh, but wrinkled, clothes, his hair still damp, but he still looked haggard. “Alison? You’re here for your old Dad?”

“Daddy!” Ali cried, jumping to her feet. She ran up to him and hugged him. “I’m so proud of you!”

Her father groaned.

“I never thought you’d agree to rehab, but I know things’ll get better once you’re back in there.”

“I don’t know-”

“Dad, please. Give a try. Otherwise, Katie and I have to leave.”

Her father grimaced. “It’s good to see you, sweetheart.”

“Daddy, please go. Just try.”

“Alright. I’ll try it.”

She hugged him again, harder.

* * *

Ali and Katie spent the night together in her old room, and Matthew took the train back to Scarsdale. Alek stayed the night in Katie’s old room, and Shawn went to the Drag Corral. The next morning, the finish packing her father’s things and set him and Alek up with tickets to Texas to go to rehab. Her father waffled back and forth about going, but each time, they responded with cutting him out of their lives, and he went back to agreeing to go to rehab. Ali tried to keep her involvement in texts from her sorority sisters limited. She knew she was missing the Monday meeting, much to her chagrin. The biggest challenge right now was getting her father on the plane.

They went with him to JFK, and dropped him and Alek off.

“Call us once you get there so we have the number,” Katie said at the drop-off to the check-in. “Don’t be afraid. You can do this.”  
“We believe in you,” Ali added. “And we’re proud.”

“I don’t feel like you should be proud,” he mumbled.

“Dad, we are so proud of you,” Katie added in. “And we’re going to do everything we can to support you and come visit-”

“Girls, I am so sorry,” her father interrupted. “I’m so sorry for all the trouble. I love you both so much and… it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Ali said. “We’re going to fix this family. I promise.”

* * *

Ali felt like passing out when she finally got back to her dorm room. She’d have to get the notes for the classes she missed and make up the assignments. Instead of calling her sisters and friends, she called Katie.

“Are you back at the Training Academy?” she asked.

“Yeah. Trying to run off the excess energy,” Katie huffed. Ali could hear the whir of a treadmill in the background. “Get home safely?”

“Yeah. Missed the meeting, though. Have you heard from Dad and Alek?”

“Not yet. I think they had- a layover in Atlanta.... You okay?”

“Yeah. I guess so. I hope he doesn’t waffle back and forth and say no once he arrives.”

“If he does, just tell him how proud you are of him for going.”

“You think he’d listen?”

“He’s… listening… to you. He will. He didn’t want… me… for so… long.”

“He does. I swear. Just a second, someone’s calling me.”

Ali hit the send button. “Kiersten?”

“Hey, how did it go with getting your dad off to rehab?’

“I think the plane took off from the Atlanta layover. We’ll see. Just a moment, Katie’s on the other line.”

“‘Kay.”

Ali checked the other line. “I’ve got a concerned big sis from Phi Kappa Mu on my other line. Call me in the morning, right?”

“Sure! Love you, bye!”

“Love you too, bye!”

She hit the send button again to talk to Kiersten.

The next day at the pledge meeting, Ali came in to find out that her pledge class sisters had missed her at meeting yesterday. “We got Dad into rehab yesterday,” she said. “Finally. I’m not sure how we’re going to go see him on the family visit weekend, but we’ll figure it out somehow.”

Jamie jumped up to hug Ali first, then Emma, then Brittany. Betsy stood off to the side, glowering.

“Don’t anybody forget, we have Founder’s Day on Sunday, and then that night, we have the initiation,” Betsy said, as pledge class president. “And they’re going to be naming pledge class superlatives at Founder’s Day, including Pledge of the Year. Our parents are invited, so please bring them to see if you won at Founder’s Day! Do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting?”

“I move that we adjourn the meeting,” Nikki said.

“I second that,” Stacy said.

“All agree to adjourn the meeting say Aye.”

“Aye.” The pledges said.

“Meeting dismissed.” Betsy tapped her gavel.

* * *

Founder’s Day was exciting at Wolf’s Chase Golf Club. The parents came, all dressed up and proud. Katie had gotten out so much with all the stuff to do with sending their father off to rehab, that she hadn’t been able to get out long enough to come up to Albany on a Sunday. Ali felt a little sad at that, but Kiersten’s mother and father had flown out to Founder’s Day and had already offered to adopt her for the day, as had Vanessa’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Porter.

Ali was excited about getting to meet Vanessa’s father and tried to keep it at that. Most of the girls knew that Ali was struggling to stay positive right now, but the Porters hugged Ali immediately. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ali,” Mrs. Porter said. “Vanessa’s told us all about you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Ali said.

“Now, Alison, if you need a plane ticket to Texas this summer to see you father, please let us know,” Dr. Porter said in a low voice.

“That’s generous. Thank you,” Ali said.

“Is this Founder’s Day?” someone shouted. “I’m here to find Alison Beckett! Ali James, where are you, girl?”

“Fifi?” Ali gasped. Shawn emerged from the lobby in full drag couture, looking like a First Lady. Ali burst out laughing. “You came for me?”

“You’re my baby princess, aren’t you? Now introduce me to all your sisters!”

The luncheon went well, and at the end, the Pledge Class superlatives were announced. They were silly, for the most part, but the serious ones started towards the end.

“And now, the pledge who completed the most service hours,” Chloe said. “Can I get a drum roll, please?”

The audience tried to do a drum roll on the table top.

“Is Alison Beckett!”

Ali, elated, jumped up. They gave her the award and they took a picture with her, Chloe, and Anesha. Ali was certain she looked absolutely goofy, grinning like a fool. Fifi was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Highest pledge GPA goes too…” Anesha announced. “Jamie Dowell!”

After Jamie accepted her award, they were down to the pledge of the year award, a very big deal. The Rose pin, their sorority’s symbol, was going to go to one special pledge from last year’s best pledge, Loren, who was handing it over.

“And now, the last award of the day, the highest honor any Phi Kappa Mu pledge can attain… Pledge of the Year. This award was started by a legacy named Ophelia Moretz and her mother Dahlia Moretz, fifty-five years ago. The mother was so excited her daughter made it through the pledge period and was getting initiated, she came to making sure her daughter was given her pin at initiation. Shortly after initiation, Dahlia went to drive home, but died in a car accident in the rain, but Ophelia donated the pin in her mother’s memory to Phi Kappa Mu. The members vote on the best pledge of the year and we are quite proud of our girl this year. She’s demonstrated strength of character, dedication to Phi Kappa Mu, and hard work,” Chloe said. “In short, she makes us all look good.”

“The distinguished award of Pledge of the Year goes to,” Anesha said, pausing dramatically. The audience did the drumroll on the table. “Alison Beckett! Congratulations, Ali!”

Ali gasped.

“Oh, Ali!” Fifi gasped. “Congratulations!” Fifi hugged and kissed her. Ali ran up to the head table to accept the award from Loren, who was standing with Anesha and Chloe, grinning at her. Ali got hugs and kisses from the officers before Loren handed her the pin.

“Now, Ali, you can’t wear this pin until you get initiated tonight. But we’re so proud of you! You’ve overcome so much and are an example of sisterhood at it’s finest. We love you, Ali!” Anesha announced.

“I can’t wait to see you wearing this tonight,” Loren said, handing over the slightly tarnished Rose pin with a little chipping on the paint.

“I’m so excited!” Ali cried. “Thank you!”

Ali saw the back of Betsy’s redhead storming out of the hall, but that didn’t dim her excitement.

* * *

That night, after all the parents went home, Ali went back to her dorm room to take a shower, wash off all her make-up and put on a white dress for initiation. She met Jamie, Stacy, Nikki, Emma, and Betsy in the freshman dorm lobby, since Jamie was offering to drive them all down to the House together. The other two girls in their pledge class lived off campus.

“Congratulations on the pin, AJ!” Jamie cried, hugging Ali. AJ had become her nickname in the sorority. “Can I see it?”

“Sure, here!” Ali said, getting the pin out of her dress’ pocket. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” Betsy said, frowning.

“Betsy, she won, get over it!” Nikki said, rolling her eyes. “So what?”

“The Pledge Class president always wins,” Betsy snapped.

“Betsy, get over yourself,” Nikki said.

“Come on, everyone, I’m going to go get my car,” Jamie said, getting her keys out of her purse. “Wait here.”

“Maybe if I had missed a whole bunch of events, I could have gotten it, too.”

“Betsy, chill out!” Emma cried.

“Betsy, I have no problem with you, why do you hate me so much?” Ali asked, finally trying to lay the issues to rest. “Can we just bury the hatchet before initiation, please?”

“Fine,” Betsy said. “Fine by me.”

Jamie’s car horn honked and Ali knew that she was not forgiving anything.

At the house, they all met in the foyer, the meeting hall closed off by curtains.

“Betsy, can we talk to you in private?” Desiree asked, coming downstairs with Anesha. “Upstairs, please.”

“Sure!” Betsy cried, excited. They went upstairs together, and the rest of the pledges waited downstairs in the lobby.

“I can’t believe this is happening so soon,” Stacy said. “I feel like we just pledged!”

“Me too!” Emma cried.

“Me three,” Ali agreed. They all laughed.

Betsy came stomping down the stairs, suddenly.

“You!” She screeched, pointing at Ali. “You did this to me!”

“What?” Ali asked.

Betsy stomped down to Ali, and for a moment, she was scared. Betsy lifted her hand to hit Ali, and Ali went to block like Katie had taught her, but Jennifer and Natalia, the sophomore pledges who lived off campus, grabbed Betsy and pulled her back.

“Betsy, I didn’t do anything to you!” Ali cried. “What the hell?”

Betsy was heaving in anger. “They- they said- they said they weren’t going to initiate me! You did this! You had it in for me all this time!”

“Stop it! I didn’t say or do anything-”

“Oh, sure! You didn’t come up with that sob story about your dad being an alcoholic to get everybody’s sympathy-”

“He’s in rehab already!” Ali cried.

“Betsy!” Brooke shouted, coming out from the meeting room in her white dress.

“Didn’t you speak up for me?” Betsy shouted, tears finally coming to her eyes.

“No, I didn’t,” Brooke replied. “I’ve actually been watching you since the retreat, and I can’t recommend you any longer.”

“What?” Betsy gasped. “You’re my big sister!”

“You’ve had it in for Ali all this time, you’ve done things to sabotage her and you tried to turn other pledges against her. And when I told you to cut it out, you turned on me! That’s not sisterhood,” Brooke said.

“You’re all bunch of bitches!” Betsy snarled. “All of you!”

“Get out,” Anesha said from the top of the stairs. “Consider yourself blackballed from Phi Kappa Mu, Betsy. We gave you the opportunity to leave twice secretly and to pledge again next year, and you didn’t take either option, but you went to attack Ali just now. Not cool. Now go. Get out!”

Betsy wrung her arms out of Jennifer and Natalia’s arms, and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.

“Everybody okay?” Anesha asked.

The pledges all sighed and nodded. Ali was a bit shaken up.

“Why don’t we all take a break and go to the kitchen for something to drink? Some ice water, maybe?” Anesha suggested. “God, we haven’t had to deny a pledge initiation since the anti-hazing laws went into effect thirty years ago. I’m sorry, everyone.”

“We’re okay,” Natalie said.

After the girls all had some cold water, they felt a little better. Ali started to calm down and took a few breaths. They agreed to let her go last, and began to take the pledges in for initiation one at a time. At last, Ali was all along in the lobby, wondering what the initiation was actually going to be like, when Kiersten came out, not even wearing her eyeliner, with a blindfold.

“Okay, this is it. Come on,” Kiersten said. She put the blindfold on Ali, and guided her into the meeting room. She spun Ali around until she was disoriented, and then took the blindfold off her.

The initiation was so special. Ali was mesmerized with the sheets on the walls, twinkle lights all over, and Anesha dressed in a white toga with a laurel leaf crown and ivy around her torso, looking like a goddess as she read the script for the initiation. Anesha _was_ a goddess. Ali took a lit candle and repeated the vow of sisterhood and service, and once the initiation was finished, Kiersten put the Pledge of the Year pin on her as well as another Rose pin that she’d never pass down. Ali was lead into the kitchen with the other pledges, who were waiting for her, and Ali joined them in a group hug, so excited and relieved to be a full Phi Kappa Mu member, finally. She really felt the sisterhood fully, and knew she didn’t want to be in any other house on Greek Row. For now, everything was perfect in her life. She couldn’t wait to do the next semester of sisterhood and service.

 


	25. Cracks

Vanessa’s father had insisted on giving Alison a voucher for Southwest so she could get to Texas to visit her father in rehab after finals, and today, Ali found herself on a flight to Dallas/Fort Worth with Katie. Katie had graduated from police academy training and was two weeks into her ten week field training, but managed to get three days off in a row during the week to go to see their father in rehab. 

Ali was staying in her father’s old apartment alone, but after the first night, she had had Father Murphy come in and bless the apartment as much as he could. She didn’t feel comfortable in there alone, and a lot of the time, stayed with Shawn or Katie, now that she had her own little studio apartment in Chelsea. Her father's apartment was too big and too creepy, holding too many bad memories for Ali.

For bravery and strength, Ali wore her Pledge of the Year pin to the airport, although she had had to take it off to go through security. 

“Dad sounds pretty upbeat whenever I talk to him,” Katie said.

“Yeah, same here,” Ali said. “He said they have him on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, whatever that is. At least, that's what he told me.”

“Probably Xanax,” Katie said. “But it's tightly controlled. It’s a highly addictive substance, the street value is like, $25 a pill right now in New York.”

“Damn, that’s a living,” Ali muttered. She hated the turbulence of flying. “I wish I had some Xanax right now.”

“Me too.”

“I’m talking about how bumpy the fight is.”

“I’m talking about how scary it is for me to see Dad again,” Katie mumbled.

“Same here,” Ali agreed. “I can’t remember a time before Mom died that I wanted to see him. Do you know how long that is? Like, five and half years.”

“I know. Did you get your essay written?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to try to read,” Katie said, getting her carry-on out from under the seat in front of her. She pulled out a book.

“Is that Richard Castle?” Ali asked, seeing the handsome gentleman on the back cover.

“Okay, so I like his books!” Katie replied, defensively.

“No, I was referring to what he looks like- wait a second, Katie, do you have a crush on him?” Ali teased. She realized that the lone bookshelf in her sister’s apartment had a huge collection of Richard Castle books on it, along with other mystery novels. But his books in her collection were organized, unlike the others, and all hardcovers. They all were the same size, so they all had to be the same editions. Katie had to have been scouring the city for those! And they had all been organized alphabetically by title, too.

“I’m too old for crushes,” Katie snarked, cheeks betraying her by turning beet red.

“The hell you are! Let me see it!” She took the book out of her sister’s hands and looked at the back cover. “Meh, he’s alright.” She shoved the book back into Katie's lap.

“His books are a guilty pleasure to read,” Katie responded, trying to write him off.

“You like him,” Ali responded.

“So what if I like his books?” Katie replied. Ali could see her cheeks turning pink as she took the book back. “It’s a good distraction from police work.”

“I meant he’s _cuuuute_ ,” Ali teased. “For your tastes.”

“He is not!” Katie cried. “Well, I mean, you know this picture of him is airbrushed and photoshopped, right?”

“ _ Suuuure _ ,” Ali replied, not missing a chance to tease her sister, she lifted up the back cover of the book to see his face again. “He’s so old, though!”

Katie's cheeks turned even redder and she snatched the book away. “He doesn’t even have gray hair!” Katie snapped. “He’s not even forty!”

“Wait, how do you know how old he is?”

“I just got curious one day because he knew a lot about history, so I looked his up on the internet, and he was born in 1973, so I guess he’s a history buff and likes geopolitics. But that’s it.”

“Stalker! You read his books because you think he’s cute!”

“Oh, shut up!” Katie snapped. “His books may be formulaic, but he can write.”

“Defensive, are we?”

“I’m gonna read my book now,” Katie said, flipping the book open to the bookmark.

Ali found it humorous that she had managed to get under her sister’s skin so well just now. 

* * *

In Dallas-Fort Worth, the girls came down to the baggage claim to see a man standing with a sign that said, “ALISON BECKETT + 1.”

“That’s me,” Ali whispered to her sister. “Hi, I’m Alison Beckett.”

“Nice to meet you,” the man said. “I’ll drive you to your destination.”

“We were just going to catch a cab to the airport Holiday Inn,” Katie said.

“I drive for Dr. Lamkish, a medical school friend of Dr. Irving Porter,” he responded. “I was given special instructions to drive you to his estate in Westover Hills.”

“That’s okay, we’re going to the Holiday Inn,” Katie said.

“Wait a second,” Ali said, recognizing Vanessa’s father’s name. “You said he’s a friend of Dr. Porter’s?”

“Yes, miss, I did.”

“Just a second,” Ali said, getting out her phone to text Vanessa.  _ Did ur father arrange 4 us 2 stay w/ a Dr.... _ “What did you say his name was?” 

“Lamkish.”

_...Lamkish? _

Ali sent the text. A moment later, Vanessa responded. 

_ Y, he’s a friend o/ours. Daddy wouldn’t let u go all teh way 2 Dallas w/o a place 2 stay. _

“He’s legit,” Ali told Katie. “Vanessa just told me so.”

“Just so you know, I’m a blue belt in Krav Maga,” Katie warned.

“I’ve got a car waiting for you two outside.”

The girls claimed their suitcases, and they took found the man with the sign again, who took them out to a black Lincoln towncar. It wasn’t a limo, but it was nicer than a cab in the Dallas humidity and heat. The girls got in, and Vanessa had told them that Dr. Lamkish had his own driver.

The driver stayed quiet up front, and drove them through Dallas to the suburbs filled with rolling hills and palatial estates like the Hamptons, and golf courses as green as the eye could see. Being New Yorkers, they didn’t see things like this often. He pulled into a driveway that had to be opened by a remote control gate. They went down a long drive to a huge house and the car pulled into the back, where a pool with a garden and a tennis court waited. There was a small guest house around the back.

“I guess we’re staying there?” Ali offered.

“I think so,” Katie agreed.

Ali felt like a slob in her uniform of a t-shirt, yoga pants, and worn-out Reeboks what she usually wore at school.

An beautiful Indian woman came out from the back, dressed an ice blue skirtsuit and matching Louboutin high heels, her hair expertly styled and makeup that rivaled Ali’s prom look as the girls got out.

“Hello! You must be Alison and Katie Beckett! I heard from Dr. Porter’s assistant that you girls were coming down! Welcome to my home! I’m Opal Lamkish, Rajish Lamkish’s wife. We’ll be putting you girls up in my guest house. It’s so nice to meet you both,” she said, with a slight Indian accent.

“Thank you having us, it’s quite a surprise,” Ali admitted. “I’m in his daughter’s sorority at SUNY.”

“Oh, Vanessa! Vanessa is just darling, isn’t she?”

“She sure is. She’s my grandbig. So proud of her getting into Boston U's Medical school.”

“Oh, I am too! Here, let me show you in.”

Opal Lamkish took the girls into the guesthouse to show them around. It was a large bedroom that overlooked the pools and hottub, and a spacious bathroom. “Call our housekeeper if you need anything. She’ll make breakfast for you anytime you’re ready in the morning. And here is the key to our extra car- you drive, don’t you?”

“I do,” Katie said. “Ali doesn’t have her license, yet.”

“Then you take it,” Opal said, dropping the key into Katie’s hand. It was a key to a BMW.

“Swanky,” Ali muttered.

“It has a GPS unit in it, too, so you won’t get lost on your way to the clinic. And here is some money for going out to dinner and enjoying yourselves tonight,” Opal got out an envelope and Ali grinned to herself, accepting it. 

“Ali, no!” Katie cried. “We’re fine with money, you don’t have to pay for our meals.”

“What kind of host would I be if I didn’t?” Opal asked, aghast. “I’m busy tonight with the Junior League, so I can’t entertain you girls.”

“But we’ll be fine,” Katie said, holding her hand up to the money. “You’ve been really generous to open your home to us tonight when you hardly know us at all.”

“I’ll leave this right here,” she said, setting the envelope down on an end table.

* * *

The girls both took turns taking showers before leaving for the clinic where their father was staying. When they got to the garage, the only BMW in there was a red two-door sportscar beside a Lambourghini and a parking spot for a Ferrari.

“Oh my God!” Ali squealed. “We get to ride in this?”

“ _ You _ get to ride in this,  _ I _ get to drive,” Katie snorted. She fiddled with the remote on the keychain and the car unlocked itself with a beep and flash of the lights.

“Hag,” Ali muttered.

There was a sudden click, and the hardtop of the car disassembled itself. The girls gasped, and they realized they were riding in a hard-top convertible.

“Are you kidding me?” Ali cried. “Come on, Hag, drive!”

They drove through Westover Hills and into town to the rehab clinic, and Ali hadn’t anticipated what happened to her hair in a convertible, since she had never ridden in one. She got out of the car when they arrived, and had to brush the rat’s nest her hair turned into. Katie had had the good sense to wear a baseball cap.

Inside, they had to check in and turn out their pockets and let their purses be searched for contraband. The girls tried to make the effort to call their father daily, although most of the time, they were leaving messages for him on his voicemail and he did the same. Ali hadn’t expected the emotions to hit her like they did when they walked past the front desk, where their father was emerging from the dormitories, where they were explicitly not allowed.

Dad’s face looked fuller and his coloring was better. He was growing a beard and was wearing a plaid button-up shirt and khakis. 

“Hi, Daddy!” Ali cried.

“Why are you calling him ‘Daddy’?” Katie hissed. “Hi, Dad.”

“My girls! I’m so happy you’re here,” he said, opening his arms to hug them both.

Ali hugged her father, feeling relieved that he seemed so…  _ normal _ .

“It’s almost lunchtime, are you hungry?” he asked.

“I could eat,” Ali admitted.

“Me too,” Katie said. He led them into the cafeteria where they checked into get trays of lunch prepared by the chef.

They sat down to an unfamiliar atmosphere of lunch with their father, and they talked about their lives, and then listened as Dad told them about life in the rehab clinic. 

“I’m doing better emotionally. I even started going back to Mass again,” he admitted. “They let me out for that, usually a van full of us go to the Catholic Church down the street. People there are really nice and welcoming.”

“That’s good to hear,” Katie said, nibbling on a lettuce leaf from her salad.

“Ali, are you leaning towards pre-law?” her father asked.

“Umm, maybe? I want to declare a major this year,” Ali admitted. “But there technically is no official pre-law major, so I’m probably going to major in humanities and social work.”

“You want to be a social worker?”  
  
“Maybe,” Ali admitted. “We’ve met a lot of good social workers in the last few years. And I’d like to be a marriage and family therapist, go to grad school. I’ve got a lot of real-world experience with counseling, you know.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about your college fund, Ali. I’ll help you out if you need it with school.”

“I’m alright on my own,” Ali admitted.

“We’re making it through,” Katie said.

“Tell me about field training, Katie?”

Katie told him about all the training she was doing and the experience of being pepper-sprayed on purpose by her sergeant, and how painful it was. “I don’t ever want to be pepper sprayed for the rest of my life,” she whispered. “It was terrible.”

“Actually…” Dad said. “Cops had to pepper spray me the night I was arrested for DUI.”

“What?” Ali and Katie cried together.

He nodded. “I’m not proud of that. But I know what it feels like and I don’t ever want that for you, either. You didn’t see it in my report?”

“No, they didn’t show it to me,” Katie admitted. "I just got a call."

“Well, I’m surprised. Can I just say that I’m so proud of the two of you? Ali, you got into a great, accredited state school and you’ve got a GPA that’s incredible for a freshman and you’re the Pledge of the Year in your sorority, and Katie, you graduated from NYU and you're the top Recruit Officer at the NYPD Training Academy, all without my help and overcoming everything I put your way. I'm pretty proud of you girls.”

“Dad, not now,” Ali muttered.

After lunch, they had an hour long session with her father’s therapist His therapist had asked for them to write the essays about how their father’s drinking affected them negatively. Ali’s read a lot like her intervention letter, and she was certain Katie’s was going to read a lot like her own, too. “I think Katie should go first, since she didn’t get to read her intervention letter to Dad,” Ali suggested.

“I think that’s a good idea,” the therapist said.

Katie got out her letter and began reading to him.

“When you started to drink, it hardened me. It made me cynical and I built up a wall around myself. I still have a hard time letting people in, and the only person I really and truly trust is Ali. And she almost died you left her alone two summers ago to hide with the bottle. I’m still angry with you for almost killing my sister. I felt like I was responsible for her accident too, because I ran away to go to the Ukraine to get away from you and left her alone with you. I can still be really aloof with people, and I hate that this is the only way I feel like I can move through life. You made me stop trusting the good in people when you started drinking. I have to brace myself at all times because I never knew when you were going to call me fat, a slut, a whore, ugly, or selfish. I’ll never forgive you for trying to turn me against Ali and all the times you succeeded in doing so. I have a hard time trusting anybody new in this world because you showed me that I can’t even trust you. It was hard to raise Ali on my own when I was still finishing college, and I don’t regret it, but I am angry with you for abandoning her, and me by extension. I felt like I had no parents when you were drinking and I was terrified. I had to make ends meet, and there were months where I slept less than three hours a night and had to hide it from Ali. I had bronchitis after you kicked me out, and I had to go to a low-cost clinic in the subway and make payment arrangements because you cut off my health insurance and I had to use my food money for the week to afford the prescriptions. There were days I went without eating and had to hide it from Ali so she wouldn’t know, other days when I survived on a packet of Ramen noodles a day and made myself sick by eating too much MSG so Ali could survive. Your drinking almost robbed her of going to her prom, it robbed her of being in guard her senior year, it robbed her of a safe home, and I had to be the person she depended on for everything. If she needed anything, I couldn’t sleep until she had it. We were homeless for a few months because you kicked me out, surviving off the kindness of people in our Al-Anon group. I had to be a parent to Ali when you decided to drink instead, and I’m still so angry at you for abandoning her. I never signed up to be a parent, but I had to be so Ali could survive and finish high school. I’m angriest that you hurt Ali like you did. I can survive, I was put to the test and I did it. But I was terrified that Ali couldn’t. I can take it if you can’t apologize to me, but you at least owe Ali an apology for all you put her through when you chose to drink instead of parent us.”

Ali watched her father fight his own tears in shame and embarrassment. He was shutting down the moment he got emotional, like he always did sober. Ali was crying, herself, curled up in a ball in the arm chair. It was clear to her that Katie had hidden a lot of things so Ali could eat and have a roof over her head. And Katie had engineered Ali’s prom, while she was starving and going without sleep, hiding it from Ali so well she had never noticed.

“There’s a lot of righteous anger that Katie’s been holding in,” the therapist remarked.

“I’m lucky you two are still talking to me at all,” Dad muttered. “It was easier to let you walk out than admit to my pride. I never meant to make you suffer like that, Katiebug-”

“Dad, don’t call me that,” Katie snapped. She was trying to hold back her own tears, and she was furious, Ali could tell. “I’m not a kid anymore, you made sure of that when you kicked me out. The name is Kate, not Katie.”

“I’ll never get used to calling you that,” Dad whispered. “I don’t know how to make it up to you-”

“You could at least say ‘sorry,’” Ali interrupted. “But yeah, that doesn’t fix things.”

“This is a truth you need to listen to every time you’re tempted to drink, Jim,” the therapist said, tapping his pen against the scratch pad in his lap. All they could hear was that, her own sniffling, and Katie’s labored breaths for a moment. “This is what drinking does to your family: it starves your daughters, puts them through hardships that you’d never want for them, and robs you of the time you have with them.”

Dad nodded, grinding his teeth to not cry.

“Can you tell your girls you’re sorry?”

Apologizing was not what Dad did best, Ali knew that. He was proud man, and a control freak, Clint Eastwood.

“You’re middle-aged, Jim. Remember that your life is more than halfway through. Drinking takes them out of your life. Do you really love them that little that you don’t mind them being missing? You don’t have as much time left as you might think you do, Jim. Remember that. Life is short.”

Dad lowered his head to between his knees and gasped in some air. Ali knew he was trying so hard not to cry. “I’m sorry,” Dad said, his voice muffled.

“Say to my face,” Katie muttered.

“This is hard for me,” Dad admitted.

“It was hard for us to blow four hundred bucks for two round-trip plane tickets, too,” Katie snarled. “Imagine what we could have done with that money, but we paid for it to get to be here for you, at least let us get something out of it.”

“Alright, I’m sorry, Katie! Is that what you want?” he barked, his head flying up to glare at her.

“No, Dad. I’d like a genuine apology. We didn’t deserve to be kicked like a trash because you’re hiding your feelings about Mom’s death in a bottle. We’re not trash, Mom didn’t raise us that way, but you treated us like we were throw-away, disposable, and worthless.”

“Jim, she’s saying some things you need to hear,” the therapist reminded him. “This is what alcohol does to you. And girls, remember that sometimes, you can’t always get the explanation or apology you deserve in life, but you can make up for it by parenting yourselves if Jim won’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Dad whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry I let these things happen to you while I was drinking.”

* * *

Katie didn’t take the visit to the rehab clinic to see Dad very well. She didn’t want to go out to dinner, she didn’t want to leave the guest house at the Lamkish’s house.

“Don’t you want to get something to eat? We can,” Ali begged. “I can ask the housekeeper to make something for you.”

“No, I’m not hungry,” Katie said, wrapping the comforter from the bed around her shoulders.

“Katie, please eat!” Ali begged.

“I’ll probably get something later. I just want to be quiet for a while.”

“I didn’t know you weren’t eating while we were living together in that little apartment,” Ali begged. “I’ll make something for you! What do you want?”

“It’s in the past,” Katie muttered. “Just leave me alone, Ali. Take the money and the keys and go into Dallas tonight and have fun.”

“I don’t have a license, you’re recommending that I drive?” Ali whispered.

Katie shook her head and tried to smile. “You can always get a cab.”

“And walk around Dallas late at night by myself?”

Katie’s eyes were so  _ dark _ . She was considering so many things at this moment, it was obvious her mind was going a mile a minute. Ali climbed under the blanket, knowing that she’d never get it out of Katie because it was probably too much, and hugged her sister as hard as she could. “I love you,” Ali whispered, knowing she could never be the hero and parent that Katie had been for her. Katie finally hugged her back, and they laid there in their blanket fort until Ali fell asleep.


	26. Fumble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making the assumption that Kate partied some her freshman year at Stanford. I hope I don't get a lot of angry reviews for this chapter. >_

Ali pulled a t-shirt on over her head and slipped into her underwear. Matthew was falling asleep in her bed in the sorority house.

She went downstairs to get something for them to eat and some beers out of the fridge in the kitchen. She made some grilled cheese sandwiches and put them both on a plate and took them upstairs to her room on the third floor.

Ali closed the door and left the bottles and plate on her desk by Matthew’s head.

“Hey,” he replied sleepily in the post-coital haze.

Ali had only been back at the sorority house for a few days. School was starting in two weeks, but Ali had moved in early, since Dad had been released from inpatient to an outpatient program in the City and she didn’t want to live with him in his apartment. It seemed to put a wedge in her relationship with Matthew. The House was a little creepy right now, seeing as only four other girls had lived here over the summer, working and taking classes. “I made some grilled cheeses for you,” she said. “And brought up some beer.”

“Thanks,” he replied, reaching for one. “I’m pretty hungry.”

Ali slid into the sheets with him in the narrow bed. He took a bite of the sandwich, and sighed in relief. He put the sandwich half back and kissed her.

“Do you want to go again?” she whispered.

“No, not yet. I just want to sleep. After food and beer.”

“Okay.”

This summer hadn’t been easy for them. They had had some major fights and blow-ups when she told him that she wasn’t moving into an upperclassman dorm or an apartment, but the House. She didn’t understand why Matthew hated Greek life so much, asides from that he had never given it a chance himself. Had he been rejected from a frat at Rush at Mercy College? Had he been attacked by some fraternity pledges but never told her about it? 

He put the sandwich half back on the plate and slipped a hand under her long shirt, hand resting on her hip to pull her close. They had discussed taking a break, but the idea of losing Matthew made Ali sick. She had fantasized about marrying Matthew and moving back to the City after she graduated SUNY, possibly trying to get into a grad school in New York. But it was moments like these, under the covers, that things seemed just fine. Matthew seemed like a part of her. To break up with him and let go of him felt like cutting off a foot or her hand. She didn’t want to live without him, but things weren’t sparkly and great, either. It seemed Greek life was the tip of the iceberg of problems between them, and he was too stubborn to work on them, it all had to be her changing to suit him. But, he came up visit and stayed with her this weekend. He was making an effort, reluctantly. Sometimes she felt like she was seeing a really dark side to Matthew that he hid from a lot of people.

She found out that he didn’t know who his father was, neither did his mother know or care. He almost seemed grossed out by her when she went to touch him to make love after she told him about reconciling with her father and talking to him. It was like he was okay with her when her father wasn’t in the picture, but now that Dad was coming back into her life, Matthew seemed to want to back away. When they discussed the future, Matthew told her he wasn’t sure he’d be a good father and wasn’t sure he wanted to have children. Ali was broken up by that: she always saw herself becoming a mom. He changed his passwords on Facebook and his email, and Ali hadn’t asked for them. He didn’t let her see his phone, either, saying he was sponsoring someone in Al-Anon in Scarsdale, and their correspondences were private and he didn’t want her seeing them, his explanation for the password changes. In any other relationship, that was taboo, a warning sign, but not for the children of alcoholics and substance abusers. He did owe his sponsee privacy, the reason why the organization has “Anonymous” in the title, she had to give him that. And, then he confessed that he wasn’t sure he believed in God anymore. Ali felt like her world was crumbling: she prayed for him, regardless, though. It felt like a smack in the face, but she couldn’t get angry with him over it, it didn’t feel like she was allowed to. And then, there were days when he’d only respond to her texts in one-word responses, and when she confronted him about it, he’d tell her that he was just in a bad mood, didn’t want to talk. She gave him his space he seemed to desire, although she felt needy and selfish and would reprimand herself. But Ali loved him, despite it all.

He was opening a website with his best photography, many of the shots including Ali. She had signed the releases, and was prepared to see herself up on the website soon, not that the shots she modeled in were risque or including nudity. He had had some other models do those things for him for class assignments, but he insisted it was all professional, although it made Ali jealous and she hated that about herself. He was a photographer, of course he’d have to have nudes in his portfolio if he wanted to be taken seriously and make a living at it. But the idea of him being around naked women still made her nervous.

She had to get him back to the train station tomorrow to go back to Scarsdale after Mass in the morning. He had already told her he was not going to attend Mass with her. She wanted to just enjoy this time with him, since his college started up again on Monday, and hated that she’d miss a full hour with him. It wasn’t the sex she craved: just the easy silences between the two of them that had once been so comforting.

He fell asleep, but she did not. She wished he’d consider coming up here to Albany to live near her next year after he graduated, so they could be closer together, but he was more interested in moving to the City. Or moving to London or Paris to get more experience. Or Los Angeles for grad school and learn filmmaking. She hoped he didn’t. His destination changed weekly. Maybe she’d elect to live away from the House and move in with him her senior year in their own apartment if she could talk him into coming to Albany. But she was certain he wouldn’t. He had some  _ wanderlust  _ in him, as her Grandpa Beckett had once called it before he died. 

She studied the light freckles on his cheeks and his eyebrows as he snored softly. 

Ali wasn’t sure how she’d do the long distance thing after he graduated this year.

* * *

Labor Day came around after the first week of school, and Ali had arranged a surprise visit with Matthew in Scarsdale with his Aunt Maisie, since it was his birthday. She knew she had to be the one to do things to show him she loved him, to make him feel special and loved, to surprise him at times. It couldn’t all be Matthew doing things for her. Relationships weren’t 50/50, more like 100/100 so they could overlap and hold onto each other.

While all of her sisters were planning to go to frat parties and the game on Saturday, Ali took a train south to Scarsdale.

Maisie had bought her a six pack of Matthew’s favorite beer to sneak in, and Ali had bought a box of their preferred condoms and stashed it into her duffelbag, made his favorite sandwich (a homemade ruben) for them to share when she got to his studio for his birthday.  And best of all, she had managed to scrimp and save for a Nikon lens he had been coveting for a long time. She had let him think that she couldn’t get down to Scarsdale until Saturday morning, so a Friday night surprise should let him know how much she cared about him and wanted this relationship to work.

She took the bus to Mercy College, where his studio and darkroom were, taking the elevator up. She felt reinvigorated, and she couldn’t wait to see his reaction to when he opened the door and she was there to surprise him. Instead, she knocked on the door, and opened it, calling his name. “Matthew? Surprise!”

“Oh shit!”

She saw in the darkness, a pale, naked female form straddling him, and his clothes are partially off, too. He had the deer in the headlight look.

Ali wasn’t sure sure what was going on for a moment, feeling like she’d faint. Then, the dots began to connect in her head.

He had been bullshitting her when he said he wasn’t able to come up to Albany to spend his birthday with her. He had  _ plans _ , of course. With this slut who was scrambling to cover her naked body up.

“Matthew, what the hell is going on here?” she asked, still stunned.

“It’s not what it looks like-”

“I think it is!” she screeched, rooting around in the cloth grocery sack to throw something at him. She flung the first thing her hand came across, but missed him by a mile. There was a metallic clunking noise, and she realized it was the lens, but she threw the next thing she got her hands on. “You get the fuck out of here, you disgusting slut, he’s somebody’s boyfriend-”

“I’m _ trying  _ to get dressed!” the girl snapped.

“I don’t care if you walk home naked!” Ali roared. “Get out!” She grabbed some kind of camera equipment by the door and managed to hit her in the head with it, making her howl. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Matthew! How could you!”

“We’re two hours away from each other, don’t treat Megan like that!”

“I’ll treat that slut however the fuck I want while she’s fucking my boyfriend!” Ali screamed, pointing at him. “Did you know he was a virgin at the age of 19 when I met him? Huh? Or did you lie to me about that, too?”

“It’s not what you think!”

“I think it is!” Ali shouted.

Megan dashed out once she located her sundress, bra, panties, and shoes be damned, and Ali slammed the door shut and flipped on the lights, trying to remember how to throw a punch, damnit if Katie hadn’t taught her how to do that, yet. Matthew attempted to get his shirt back on.

“Ali, you’re ruining the shots I’m developing!” he shouted.

“I don’t give a fuck!” Ali screamed. Leave it to her boyfriend to make her curse like a sailor. “How could you sleep with another girl?”

“I wasn’t! Nothing happened?”

“She’s one of your models, isn’t she? You really expect me to believe that you’ve never done anything with her until tonight and it doesn’t count that was kissing you and writhing all over you naked?”

“Yeah, as luck would have it!”

“You told me you had darkroom time this weekend and you couldn’t let it go, and you pull this? You’ve lied to me! How am I supposed to believe you?”

“Can we at least go back to Maisie’s house and not have this fight in public?”

“Do you think I can hold this in right now? Long enough to get back to her house?”

“Have some class, Ali-”

“ _ Class _ ? You want to talk about  _ class  _ when I’ve done nothing but try to make you look good and serve up my whole soul to you?”   
“Oh yeah, that’s why you joined a sorority whore house-”

“You’re bringing my sorority into this again?”

“Yes, I am!” he shouted.

“Fucking shit,” Ali pronounced slowly, her rage building. She didn’t feel like being ladylike right now and saying the worst words she knew provided some sense of satisfaction. “I hate you right now. I really despise you. I gave you everything and you made me feel guilty so you could get away with cheating! And you pull this with me!” Her voice raised.

“Get out before I call the cops,” he threatened. “Go home to Maisie’s and we’ll talk.”

“I’m leaving, but I’m not going to Maisie’s, I’m out of here,” Ali replied, throwing everything down, except her purse.

She went down to the bus stop and was too upset to even realize which line she was on. “I need to get to the train station,” she told the bus driver, tears falling down her face. “How do I do that?”

“It’s the blue line, honey,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

“I just found out my boyfriend’s cheating on me.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah…” she muttered, feeling the angry tears falling again. She took the line to the train station, and called Katie, getting her voicemail. She didn’t want to say it in public, so she hung up, and send Katie a text while waiting in line to buy a ticket. She had left a change of clothes and her contact case and toothbrush at Maisie’s house, but didn’t care.

_ Well, Matthew’s cheating on me. I went to his darkroom as a surprise, and he had some stupid slut naked in his lap, kissing him. _

_ I feel like a complete dumbass & the next train to Albany isn’t going anywhere for another hour. _

_ How did I not see the clues? He pushes me away at times, and he’s so secretive, and doesn’t let me see his messages or emails. I bet he’s lied about lots of things! _

As Ali was writing the fourth text, Katie’s number rang her phone.

“Look,” Katie answered the phone. “Come down to the City. He’s not going to look for you there just yet. He’ll go to Albany, first. What the hell… Ali, if you had told me about all the things he was hiding from you, I could have told you what he was doing!”

“What do I do?” Ali moaned, holding back her sobs. The tears flowed. “I don’t know how I missed it. All the signs were there.”

“Ali, you couldn’t have known,” Katie whispered. “You have a key to my apartment, go there. I’m going to kill him. Spineless bastard!”

The person in front of Ali in line stepped aside. “Hi, can I get a ticket to Penn Station in New York City?” she asked.

“That’ll be three dollars.”

“Go wash your face and try not to freak out on the ride to my place, you’re welcome to anything I have. I’ll be off at three am and come straight home, alright?” Katie instructed.

“Okay,” Ali whispered, getting her ticket to Scarsdale.

“There’s some coffee-flavored Hagan-Daas in the freezer, I don’t  _ think  _ it’s got freezer burn, but I can’t promise anything, I think I got it last month-”

“You’re good to me,” Ali whispered.

“We’ll get through this, Ali. After I kill him and make it look like an accident.

Ali went to the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face and found that her mascara was running down her cheeks and she had raccoon eyes. Using some hand lotion, she tried to wipe off the black rings off her face with a paper towel. She hid in the bathroom until her train arrived, worried Matthew would look for her here, and she found a seat in a compartment. The train got delayed to her frustration, and she didn’t arrive in the city until almost ten pm.

At Katie’s apartment, she let herself in and immediately sat down to cry on the bed. She felt paralyzed: how could he do this to her? He was her whole world, and he had just pretended he never slept with anyone else. Had he lied to her about being a virgin when they first got together, too? He had always seemed so genuine and sweet on the outside.

Her mind ran in circles, and Matthew tried to text her. She wanted to fling her phone out the window and let it shatter in the alley, but she realized she couldn’t afford to replace it right now. Instead, she turned it off, but thought again, and turned it back on in case Katie called her. She almost deleted his entry in her contact list, but knew it wouldn’t stop him from contacting her. There was no such thing as blocking numbers on cell phones yet. She changed his name from Matthew Holstock to  _ LYING SHITHEAD _ instead.

The embarrassment and humiliation was the worst part. That she could be so stupid. Did she deserve this? To be cheated on and lied to when she trusted him with not only her heart and insecurities, but her body too?

She couldn’t sleep, so she scanned Katie’s bookcase, and grabbed one of Richard Castle’s novels and found a lone beer in the fridge. Maybe she should just get drunk and then she’d fall asleep and not think about it. Of course, she felt dirty too, so she ran a bath and scrubbed at herself, but didn’t feel cleaner afterwards. Sitting the scalding hot tub, she tried to read the Richard Castle novel and drink her beer, but she couldn’t concentrate.

After she dried off and found some yoga pants and an NYPD t-shirt of Katie’s to wear, she climbed into the bed and cried her eyes out in the dark.

Ali woke up to the door opening.

“Ali? Are you here?” Katie called.

“Yeah,” she said, lifting her head.

“Oh, honey,” Katie said, going straight for the bed and taking her sister into her arms. “It happens at least once to everybody, but it hurts like hell.”

Ali burst into fresh tears, her eyes swollen and hot already. “Why? What did I do to make him do this?”

“I don’t know,” Katie said, letting go of her just long enough to flip on the lamp. Katie was in her uniform, and she took off her hat. “Nothing, I bet. Men just can’t keep it in their pants sometimes.”

“I thought Matthew was different,” Ali choked out between sobs. “He… he seemed like such a good guy, so honest and sweet. I guess not-”

“They all cheat. Trust me. Men are looking to hook up with as many women as possible, we just want one guy to focus on. It’s evolution, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“I drank your last beer.”

Katie tried not to laugh. “That’s okay.” 

Ali laughed too, almost hysterically.

Katie’s phone chimed and she checked the text. “Oh. My.  _ God _ . He just sent me a text asking if you’re at my place. He’s in Albany looking for you at your sorority house..”

“What did he think he was going to accomplish going to find me?” Ali asked.

_ “Do not come here…” _ Katie dictated as she typed a response. “ _ She needs a… break. _ ”

“I don’t want to see him. God, I felt so stupid I caught him with her. Wasn’t I enough?”

“Did you ever tell him that you wanted a closed relationship?”

“I just thought that was a given when he asked me to be his girlfriend!”

“Relationships are complicated these days. If you don’t make things crystal clear with guys, they’ll find ways to get around monogamy with semantics. If he tries to do that with you, I’ll kill him. I want to kill him right now.”

“Me too.”

Katie’s phone chimed again. Katie gasped as she read it. “Ass. He said he’s coming anyway.” She replied, typing. “ _ You know I carry…. Right? Don’t try... to break... in. to… my place... to get to her... I will shoot. _ ”

Ali found some humor in this, although she was mad that he was trying to find her. “Can you do that?”

“Any American citizen has second amendment rights,” Katie snorted. “They can’t touch me if he tries to break into my private residence to get to you. I have every right to defend you, too. But you will have to leave my apartment eventually.”

“I just want to rot in here for a while,” Ali muttered, flopping back on the bed.

“You’ll make my apartment stink, no. I know you don’t want to confront this right now, but it’s better to get it over with.”

“I guess.. This means Matthew and I have to break up.”

Katie shifted uncomfortably, and unbuttoned her top few buttons. “No, you don’t  _ have _ to. You need to decide if you can handle him cheating on you this one time and lay out the rules. Relationships survive this kind of stuff, you know.”

“You actually know?”

“I’ve had my heart broken. Mark, the guy I’m hanging out with these days, he’s kind of afraid to cheat on me once he found out I was cop. I think it’s because he’s afraid I know how to hurt him, but we haven’t agreed to be exclusive, we’re just casually dating. But anyway…”

“You’re telling me I need to become physically intimidating?”

“No! You don’t have to do that. Just lay out what you expect from here on out. Especially with Matthew. I had a boyfriend cheat on me sophomore year, and we tried to stay together-”

“Why did I not know about this?”

“Because I wasn’t being a very good sister at that time, that’s why.”

“I’d have stuck up for you… if we had been like we are now.”

“I know. But it’s in the past. I let him put me through that, and I knew better, but anyway...”

Ali groaned and covered her face with a pillow.

“I know this is mortifying for you. Hey, I told you about the first guy I ever slept with, right?” Katie asked, getting up to change into her pajamas in the bathroom. 

“Yeah, you weren’t in a relationship with him and you regret it to this day.”

“Oh, it was worse than that. I didn’t tell you the whole story about it. It was right after Mom died, I went back to Stanford for the spring semester, and I went to see this guy who had been in my sociology class that fall I smoked with a lot, and he took me back to his apartment and paid a little attention to me, and I just...  _ dove _ , right into it with him. And he took me home that night, and I felt like, ‘ _ Oh my God, everything’s going to be okay, because I’ve got an older boyfriend, now! _ ’ Okay, that was completely stupid, I don’t know what I was thinking, a boyfriend doesn’t magically make everything crappy in your life better. But I wasn’t thinking clearly anyway. And he’s not your boyfriend right after you have sex with him unless he’s agreed to it. My therapist says that was me making dumb decisions in a state of grief. So, anyway, he ignored all my calls and emails after that, and I finally tracked him down at his apartment three days later, and he was like, ‘I’m not ready to settle down with one girl right now, although it was really sweet that you chose me to lose your virginity to. We can still hook up, though.’ I should have punched him, but I started crying because I was so embarrassed and I’m not proud of this, but…”

“You had sex with him again?” Ali guessed, mortified.

Katie nodded, blushing.

“Ew!”

“Like I said. Not proud. Okay, it was pity sex, deep down I knew it. We smoked afterwards and I didn’t feel anything, just numb. And ten minutes later, he got a call from another girl, and outright said he had just hooked up with someone, but he could hang out and smoke up some more with her. Right in front of me. I felt like the world’s biggest dumbass. I probably was the world’s biggest dumbass, too.”

“Oh God, that’s horrible! I can’t believe you withheld so much information from me! I’d kill him if I got my hands on him- who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Katie admitted. “Not now, but I can remember his name. And his face. It took me a while to forgive myself for being so naive, but I guess I learned a lot. I still get embarrassed when I talk about it, but I feel like you need to know how awful and experience it was. Sometimes, the first guy you ever sleep with can be a complete  _ douchebag _ . He might put on a good act when you first meet him, but afterwards, it’s all downhill from there. But, I left his apartment while he was taking a shower and it was a  _ walk of shame _ . I felt like everybody was staring at me and just  _ knew _ what I had just had been the recipient of pity sex. And I remember ducking behind a support beam when I saw him in the Student Center a few weeks later so he wouldn’t see me as he walked by, but that was because he’d have killed me if he saw me.”

“Wait a second, when you say you smoked with him-”

“Yes, it was what you think it was. Not tobacco. And I stole all his weed while he was in the shower that day!”

“Good for you!” Ali laughed. She found herself giggling uncontrollably.

“Not a fair trade for my virginity, but hey, I got some good use of the blunts. I have this vision of him standing there in towel after his shower, holding an empty stashbox and saying, ‘Hey, that bitch just stole all my weed!’”

“And he couldn’t report it to the police, either!”

“Yeah, that gave me some satisfaction after what he did to me. Okay, I hope you feel better, yuck it up at my expense!”

“I had no idea!” Ali admitted, her giggles getting hysterical-sounding.

“If you want laugh at me some more, I even went to Vegas with my spring semester boyfriend and got stoned out of my mind with him, too. This was during spring break. Let me tell you something, he was sloppy in bed and didn’t know what the hell he was doing, either. I mean, he was a resident of fumble city, if you know what I mean and that’s the most I’ll ever tell you. I can’t even remember half of what we did that weekend I was so high, but I had this one polaroid of me completely stoned with a case of the squints, with two showgirls on either side of me.”

“What happened to the picture?” Ali asked.

“I don’t know, it’s probably somewhere in my room at Dad’s. I can’t remember where I hid it. Speaking of which, I need to see if I can find it and  _ burn it _ . If you do dumb stuff, just make sure there’s no record of it, okay?” she got up to brush her teeth.

“I can’t even tell what’s dumb right now.”

“I know,” Katie said, talking around her toothbrush. “But I promise you, this is just a part of growing up and relationships that everybody experiences. And it sucks, but one day, you’ll look back on this and realize how shitty Matthew was being and how you didn’t deserve this. I hope you’ll have better sex by then and be able to laugh at him in some way.”

“I hope so,” Ali said, her giggles dying down. “But… he was…”

“If you say he was the best,” Katie said, wagging her toothbrush in Ali’s direction. “I’m going to slap you because you told me he was virgin, too. You have no frame of reference!”

“I thought he was when we did it. I don’t know if I’d believe a damn thing he’s ever said to me now.”

“It’s not in your best interests, I’ll be honest. But it’s okay to be a haze and think he just… hung the moon.”

“I don’t, now. I guess… to look at it from another perspective… I could have gone through this with Jason and it would have been much, much worse.”

“Oh, Jason! I forgot about him!” Katie  cried. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t do it with him?”

“God, yes! Oh, Katie, it’s already 4:30 in the morning! I kept you up.”

“I’d let you keep me up as late as you want, Als,” Katie said softly. “That’s what sisters are for, right?”


	27. Burnout

Ali and Matthew, after her initial reaction, decided to give it one more try. They made it to Homecoming before Ali realized she was holding his cheating over his head and making him miserable. Ali spent the week making a Homecoming float with their fraternity they were paired off with, and deciding pros and cons of staying with Matthew with Kiersten and Jamie. Jamie even made a list on paper.

On Saturday, Matthew came up to spend Homecoming with her and came to the game.

“Listen, do you really want to keep this going? I don’t think things will ever be like they were before,” she said as they went to the concession booth for some sodas and food.

“I don’t know, Ali,” Matthew admitted.

“Are you happy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that makes me feel better,” Ali said. “I’m not happy. I feel like you’re not, either and … why are we in this relationship if we’re not happy?”

Matthew sighed. “Because we want for our relationship to work out for lack of experience with other people.”

She knew he was right about that. It was scary to consider being with someone else. But honestly, she knew he’d never have the same fervor and excitement about her again. It hurt. But she realized she deserved that; deserved a man who was excited about her and made her heart flutter again. She didn’t get that feeling with Matthew anymore. Try as they might, they had tried to reclaim that spark, but it wasn’t there anymore. Being single seemed terrifying, too, but then again, she got numbers all the time at her job at the campus pub from cute college boys. She had been single before, and it wasn’t so bad at the time. Being single now… well, she could get tons of guys to date her. She realized she had nothing to really fear, now. “I want to break up.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be unhappy. Do you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Then… we should break up.”

“You want to break up, just like that?”

“We’re still young, why waste our time being in a bad relationship?”

“Do you really think things’ll be better? Because I don’t!”

“I kinda do. I don’t like this holding it over your head. We don’t have that spark we had when we first got together and… I don’t feel like we’re ever going to get it back. We tried. It’s not working.”

“We’ll try harder.”

“No. I’m done. Matthew, this isn’t any good for me anymore. Let’s just cut our losses and call it.”

“If you want to sleep with other people to make things work-”

“That’s not it, no.”

“I was going to tell you if it made you feel better about what happened, leveled the playing field-”

“I don’t want that. I don’t want our relationship to be about getting even, Matthew. I want to be in a relationship that’s not about keeping score. That’s not a relationship, it’s a competition.”

He looked disgusted, but Ali knew she had kept faithful to him, she didn’t need to be ashamed of herself. His disgust was his own unhappiness with himself. She couldn’t fix that.

“I don’t see anything good happening between us anymore. I want to see other people. I should have said this at your birthday instead of drawing it out. I’m sorry for that, but… I’m done.”

“Fine. I’m going back to Scarsdale if you change your mind.”

He left right then, in the middle of the Homecoming game. Ali went back to the section her sorority had reserved with the frat they had paired off with, and she found Jamie, but she really wanted to talk to Kiersten, but couldn’t. Kiersten was on the sidelines, cheering with the Varsity squad at the top of the pyramid.

“Where’s Matthew?” Jamie asked.

“We just broke up.”

“Oh!” Jamie cried, grabbing Ali to hug her.

“I’m alright. Right now. I decided on it. I think things are going to be okay now. I’m not afraid of being single, but he’s being really defensive and he walked out of the game. I think he’s expecting me to run after him and change my mind, but… yeah. I just decided things aren’t what they used to be and it’s not worth it anymore, because I feel like I’m holding things over his head and… I don’t want to be like this. I’m not happy with him so...”

“I know, honey,” Jamie said, sympathetically. “There’s plenty of cute brothers in Phi Sigma Kappa. We’ll dance and party all night with them tonight!”

“I don’t even want to take it seriously tonight,” Ali admitted.

When she got back to the house, she texted Katie that she and Matthew broke up during the game and she had suggested it. She put her phone in her bra and went with a group of her sisters to the Phi Sigma Kappa house to dance and party and drink the night away.

* * *

Ali took sometime to recover from breaking up with Matthew, but he kept on texting her. Ali decided to ignore his text for a week, but let him know about it. Granted, she knew she was being a bitch, but she didn’t see how reading his texts would help things. She didn’t want to give him false hope. She was done with him.

Ali let some of the college boys and frat boys at her job at the Campus Pub start taking her out just to get back out there, even though she wasn’t interested in a new boyfriend yet, let alone sex. But she felt free. Matthew’s cheating had basically ruined their relationship, and she had realized how much she didn’t like cheating from a partner. She realized she’d never stand for it in the future. He had admitted he didn’t want to break up because he didn’t have much experience outside Ali herself, but Ali had the least experience, and had insisted on the break up. It defined her a little bit, she realized. She wanted to date without the terror of having to have sex for a while. Sex still intimidated her a bit.

On the 19th of November, on Katie’s birthday, Matthew sent Ali a bouquet of lillies.

_I couldn’t remember where your mother is buried, so I’m sending these to you instead._

_-Matthew_

Ali rolled her eyes and gave the lillies to the sorority to keep on the front entry table in the foyer. It made her feel weird to get flowers from him a month after they broke up.

She made a difficult choice to go home and stay with Katie instead of her father. She arrived in the City and Katie met her at Penn Station. They went for dinner with their father, and Ali admitted she had broken up with Matthew.

“That’s too bad, I liked him,” Dad said.

“I know,” Ali said. “It just didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry about that, honey. He was a good young man.”

“Yeah,” Ali said tightly. “I didn’t want to stress you with the news in the outpatient program you’re in.” She exchanged a glance with Katie.

“I’m getting along just fine now. Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me?” he asked. “You’ll have your own bed? Your old room?”

“I’m not ready yet, Daddy.”

“And she and I have a lot sister stuff to talk about and catch up on,” Katie chimed in. “We’ll be there to make Thanksgiving bright and early tomorrow.”

After dinner, they burst into her apartment.

“I couldn’t hardly keep from telling Dad was a cheater Matthew turned out to be!” Ali cried, flopping on Katie’s couch.

“I get that so hard! It’s so tough to keep from Dad that what actually happens in relationships,” Kate admitted, collapsing on her bed. “He can’t handle it.”

“Nope, he cannot,” Ali agreed. “Did I tell you that Matthew’s been texting me daily since Homecoming?”

“Trying to win you back?”

“Yep.”

“Then he should have kept it in his pants as a lesson in the first place! You were pretty generous giving him a second chance.”

“I know I was,” Ali said. “He sent me lilies on the anniversary of Mom’s death, saying he couldn’t remember where she was buried, did you know that?”

“Classic case of him trying to win you back,” Katie replied.

She considered that Matthew’s insistence that he’d make it right, despite all he did to her. “I was tired of being unhappy whenever he came to see me. And dreading his calls, because they felt like a punishment. I’m glad he was my first because we had a really good time together for a while, but… I knew it was the right thing to move on.”

“I’m happy you did too,” Katie said, looking up. “You get it, you know. You get your own value, now. I’m so proud of you for that.”

“You are?”

“Um, duh. I wouldn’t want you sticking around with him because you felt obligated. That’s such a sign of insecurity.”

“Haven’t you stuck around in an unhappy relationship, hoping it would get better?” Ali asked, surprised.

“Once. It started to strip everything from me, so I quit. Well, I think there’s giving a second chance and trying to make it work when you’ve invested a lot of yourself into a relationship. You invested a lot into Matthew. But a third and fourth chance and so on… I’d be embarrassed in that situation, especially if everyone knew he had screwed up so much. It’s not worth it to stay with someone who embarrasses you so much, it’s… self-abuse, like whipping yourself like that character in _the Da Vinci Code_.”

“I _was_ embarrassed when I found out Matthew cheated,” Ali admitted.

“Was it enough that you’d have kicked him out of your life immediately? I guess not.”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s why I gave him a second chance.”

“Men suck, sometimes.”

“Yeah, why do they have to be so cute, too?”

“Meh. Some of ‘em.”

* * *

Ali came back from Thanksgiving for finals week, the bad news came out in the paper that there was rape a block away from Sorority Row. Phi Kappa Mu was quite upset about it, and it was a topic at the last meeting before finals.

“I vote that we should use the emergency house fund to improve the exterior lighting around our house before Rush in January,” Stacey voted.

“I agree,” Melissa said, who was now the President. “All in favor of more exterior lighting, say Aye.”

“Aye,” the call went around the meeting room.

“All opposed, say Nay.”

The room was silent.

“Then we’ve agreed that we’ll light the House better on the outside. Any other motion?”

“I think we should have a House event where we come up with better ways to keep sisters safe when we’re walking alone on campus,” Ali said. “I don’t have a car and I’ve never needed to drive, being that I’m from the City, so I walk everywhere, even after dark. And yeah, I carry a can of Mace with me everywhere I go, but that won’t always stop an attacker. Can we come up with a system where there’s always a sister who has a car that will drive? Kind of like our Tipsy Tow on the weekends?”

The Tipsy Tow was a cell that the sorority paid for and kept in the meeting room. Usually, two sisters volunteered to man the cell phone, and they’d stay in and stay sober for a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night, and would go to pick up any sister or a pledge who needed a ride home after partying and drinking. Ali had used it a few times herself, and had volunteered to partner with a sister who could drive and had a car this fall. Sometimes, it took both girls to pick up a sister who was trashed. On campus, the university provided a van service with a blinking blue light on it to pick students up who needed a ride back to their dorms after dark, but it wasn’t the most reliable service and on busy weekends, it took forever to get to people. Sometimes, in the cold, Ali risked it and walked home in the dark.

“I like that idea because some of us do go out drinking on the weekday nights too, but can we actually get enough people to volunteer?” Nikki asked.

“I think we can,” Ali said. “More people would have to do it more often. And I’m happy to be the non-driver sister, since I can’t drive. But I feel really helpless knowing that there’s a rapist out loose on campus, preying on girls walking alone at night that can overpower me with his size, easily. I called the Blinky van a few times, and they said it’ll be an hour before they can get a van to my location to pick me up. So much can happen in an hour in the dark.”

“I’ve found myself in the same situation,” Stacy said. “I can’t drive and I can’t buy a car right now.”

“Parking on campus is a complete pain,” Kiersten added. “Ali, your sister, isn’t she a Krav Maga black belt?”

“Not yet. But she’s pretty good at it, she can defend herself if needed.”

“She’s a lady cop, wouldn’t she be willing to teach us for sisterhood event?” Kiersten asked. “When I met her this summer and when I got to know her, she said that Krav Maga was a great self-defense for women, because it was built specifically around women’s bodies. And you told me she spars with men twice her size like three times a week when she works out.”

“That’s a good idea,” an unknown voice said behind Ali.

“Along with a week day Tipsy Tow, we could learn to defend ourselves better so if we _have_ to walk home in the dark, we’ll have a better chance of getting away,” Stacy said. “But we’ve got to learn to kick ass in the first place.”

“We’ve already had a sisterhood event this semester,” Melissa said. “Ali, can you ask your sister if she’d come up for an event and then we can plan it around her schedule? If she can’t, we’ll find someone else, but this is a great idea! We shouldn’t have to be afraid of walking alone at night. All in favor, say Aye.”

“Aye!”

“All opposed?”

Silence.

“Okay, Ali, let’s get this ball rolling.”

“After meeting, I’ll call her.”

“Motion to dismiss?”

* * *

“Did I tell you I got my own car, yet?” Katie asked, excited after Ali called her that night.

“That’s great! I’m so excited for you!”

“Thank you! I can’t wait for you to come home for the break!”

“Me too. Christmas is going to be so much fun!”

“Look… about that…” Katie said gently, her tone changing. “I’m low man on the totem pole still. I’m working Christmas.”

“Oh, you are?” Ali asked, disappointed.

“Yeah. But don’t worry, we’ll have Christmas with Dad. I’ve already told him, he wanted to go out to the cabin at the lake for a Christmas weekend like… I think the weekend after Christmas? Or maybe New Year’s.”

“For what, ice fishing? Ice fishing is so boring!”

“I know. But, I think it’s nice that he wants to spend Christmas with us. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”

“Well… where am I going to go?”

“You’ve got sorority sisters, see if you can spend Christmas with them?” Katie suggested. “Dad’s already told me he want to attend the AA Christmas events and helping to run them all day long if you went to stay with a sorority sister. Or you can go see our family in Connecticut.”

“No thanks,” Ali agreed. “I’ll check around and see if anybody would be willing to have me over Christmas, but I wanted to ask you something else.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Well, there was a rape on campus, only like a block from the House during the Thanksgiving break, and we’ve gotten really upset about it. But tonight, I was asked to see if I could get you to come up here and teach a beginner’s class in self-defense. Are you game?”

“Well… I’m pretty busy through the New Year. Maybe in January?”

“Of course! I’ll let them know. You can always say no.”

“My sensei wants me to do some volunteer work as part of my belt test, so this is a good idea.”

“Great! You could spend the night at the house, then,” Ali said. “We’ll put you up and feed you. Just let me know what’s a good day to come up.”

“Well, I’ve got split days off, let me see if I can trade a shift with another beat cop.”

“Okay, just keep me informed.”

* * *

Stacy offered to let Ali come up for Christmas dinner at her family’s apartment, which let Ali let her father off the hook to go help with the AA meetings on Christmas Day. She graciously accepted.

Stacy’s parents were Presbyterians, so this meant they were going to a service on Christmas Day, not Midnight Mass. Ali and her father went to see Father Murphy officiate the service.

The next morning, her father’s apartment was empty when she woke up. Getting around the Macy’s Christmas Parade traffic was not easy, but she arrived at the Spencer’s apartment in the Upper West Side. Stacy’s older brother was there too, and he answered the door.

“Hi, are you Ali?” he asked after Stacy buzzed her through the front desk. Ali had to admit he was pretty cute.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Ali said.

“Come in, I’m Kellan, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

“Here, let me take your coat.”

“Thank you!”

He took her in and made a drink for her, and Ali met Stacy’s parents officially. They had just gotten home from church that morning, and the Christmas turkey was in the oven, making the apartment smell delicious. Ali offered to help with cooking Christmas dinner, but Mrs. Spencer declined. “We did most of the cooking yesterday, we’re just reheating some stuff right now. Our neighbors across the hall are letting us use their extra oven, so we might need some help with getting the rest of the food here at three,” she said. “Have some salmon and capers, honey.”

“Thank you,” Ali said, trying to be as polite as possible. Stacy’s family seemed very polite and formal at first, but then Ali started seeing cracks in the perfection: Stacy’s father suddenly claimed he had to go to the office, and she caught Stacy and Kellan exchanging a smirk. Mrs. Spencer’s aggravation with her husband was covered up pretty well until Ali heard the radio in the kitchen turned up in volume.

“Dad didn’t get any Christmas presents, yet,” Stacy whispered to Ali, smirking.

“He does this every year,” Kellan explained. “Do you game?”

Ali felt like she had been punched. “Huh?” She had a flashback of gaming naked with Matthew after sex one night and it ended with more sex. Her cheeks burned.

“Do you game?” he asked, getting a game console controller out. He tossed it to her.

“I have in the past,” Ali admitted. “What game is this?”

“ _Burnout 3_ ,” Kellan said. “My favorite. Stace-face, go turn on the XBOX.”

“I’m not your slave,” Stacy snorted.

“You want to wreck some interstate exchanges or what?”

Stacy, groaning, got up and flipped on the XBOX.

“What’s the game?” Ali asked.

“The point is to wreck your car and cause as much damage as possible,” he explained.

“Wow, that’s violent.”

“I’ll go first so you can see it,” he said.

“Can’t I help your mom in the kitchen?” Ali asked, feeling awkward.

“She doesn’t like kitchen help,” Stacy said. “It’s her kitchen, and she’s getting anxious. We’ll help her with the reheat.”

Kellan, Stacy, and Ali took turns playing _Burnout 3_ , and Ali actually caused more damage after a few rounds, proud of herself, but the idea would stress Katie out. She knew it was a traffic beat cop’s worst nightmare, but it was fun to play on a video game.

“One more round! Let’s play!” Ali begged when Mr. Spencer got home with presents he was trying to sneak in without anyone noticing. His kids noticed, of course, chortling.

“Just like Dad,” Stacy muttered. “He asked me to go buy some Christmas presents for him last year for Mom like he does every year, because he’s so afraid of being caught shopping for women.”

“My Dad’s the same way!” Ali cried.

“Oh yeah, so I went to Mom and asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and she’s always so sensible, and she goes, ‘underpants.’ And mom wears some granny panties, okay?”

Ali dissolved into giggles.

“And they wear out so fast, so I went to Victoria’s Secret and bought a really sexy bra and panty set and wrapped it up for him, and on Christmas Day, he hands her the present all proud of himself, and she opens it, and Kellan got a picture of Dad’s face when she held it up. It’s in my room! Let me go get it!” Stacy jumped up to go to her room.

“Dad’s really the Clint Eastwood type,” Kellan explained.

“My Dad is, too!” Ali laughed.

“Just wait. He’s going to try to wrap those presents, too, and it’s going to be a mess. It’s worth it to pay Stace to wrap all mine for me, because she does such a good job.”  
“She’s very artistic,” Ali agreed. Stacy was a graphic design major at school, and had done a fantastic webpage overhaul for Phi Kappa Mu this semester.

“Found it!” Stacy cried, coming out from the bedrooms, waving a picture. “Hey Dad, remember this picture from last Christmas?”

“Stacy, no!” her father’s voice came from the master bedroom.

“Too late!” Stacy thrust the picture into Ali’s line of sight, making her laugh.

* * *

Ali ended up making a promise to Kellan that she’d play _Burnout 3_ with him again sometime before Winter Break was over and they exchanged numbers. He admitted he was an entry-level analyst at Brewster-Keegan already hated it as they helped out with cleaning up the dinner dishes and clearing the table. “I think I’m going to go back to graduate school as soon as possible. It’s not worth it.”

“But it’s really cool to work there, isn’t it?” Ali asked, accepting a washed plate to dry by hand towel.

“It was when I got a job right out of college, but not now. I hate living in Hoboken.”

“That’s where you live?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How is it?”

“Not nearly as expensive as Manhattan, but the commute sucks.”

“I know, I commuted from Brooklyn to Manhattan every morning between seven and eight for eight months.”

“If I could, I’d have searched more for a Manhattan apartment. I ended up going with a group of my frat brothers who had a cheap place.”

“Well, it must be nice to live with them.”

“Sometimes. Other times, I’m like, dude, isn’t it time to grow up and not blow all our money on weed and beer? I’d like to get a car of my own. Or put a deposit down on a single-bedroom apartment where I could spend a quiet Friday night playing XBOX without having to get trashed and throw a party.”

“That sounds amazing,” Ali agreed. “I love living in the Phi Kappa Mu house, because when I’ve had enough _people_ , I can go up to my room and put on some headphones to drown them out.”

“Well, communal living for men is really different,” Kellan said. “It gets annoying at times.”

“Maybe you’re an introvert,” Ali suggested.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Although my frat brothers are like, ‘that’s so gay man! Are you a fag?’ When I want to be alone and quiet.”

“That’s really… shitty,” Ali said, horrified.

“It is. Like, sometimes, I just was some quiet to read a book and get some work done. I’d like to build things, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like… we used to spend our summers in the Hamptons with our grandparents, and grandpa had a hobby in carpentry. He and Stacy and I used to spend the summer working on projects together. We’re actually pretty good with a power saws and drills. Grandpa didn’t care that Stace was girl, he taught her anyway.”

“Cool,” Ali agreed.

“I used to smoke a lot of weed, and I like to build things instead of eat,” he added. “I never got the munchies, but I had to do something. I built the dining room table we just ate at.”

“That is so cool! I mean, about building stuff. I sew, and people say you’ve got to know how to put things together in your head to sew well. I built part of house with Habitat for Humanity in Phi Kappa, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“About building a house?”

“No, about me admitting to smoking weed. Stacy told me about your Dad having substance abuse problems.”

“He’s doing okay, now,” Ali admitted. “He’s spending the day assisting with cleaning up and serving at the AA Christmas Day meetings. I’m proud of him.”

“And your sister’s a cop?”

“Trust me, she doesn’t bother with low-level minor possession of weed. She usually just confiscates it and flushes it and lets them go.”

“She sounds like a cool cop.”

“She is. But Burnout would send her up the wall.”

“But we’re on for playing more?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ali said.

“I’ll take you out in Hoboken, the commute sucks, but there are some cool bars and restaurants I can take you out to.”

“I’d like that,” Ali said.

After the Spencers opened Christmas presents, Ali said goodnight, and thanked them for having her.

Ali arrived home, and Dad was just getting back as well.

“How was your Christmas, Alidoodle?” he asked.

“It was fun,” she admitted. “The Spencers were really nice and welcoming. Are you hungry? I have some leftovers.”

“No, I’ve had some snacks at the meetings. I’m going to watch some TV and go to bed.”

“Sounds good. Can I watch with you?”

“Sure, honey.”

* * *

The next day, people were hitting the after Christmas Sales hard, but Ali and Kellan agreed that it would be a good afternoon for her to come over and play some XBOX. She made some cookies and took the train to Hoboken. At the World Trade Center Memorial Metro station, she took the green line to Hoboken with Stacy, and they went to Kellan’s apartment. Kellan’s frat brothers were loud and hungover, so Kellan took them to his room, where he had made the bed and cleaned up a little.

“Do you like sugar cookies?” Ali asked. “I made these for us.”

“Man, you’re speaking my language,” Kellan said as he took the lid off the tin to help himself to the cookies. Stacy started the XBOX and they started playing _Burnout._

Ali nodded off after the sunset and drinking a few beers.

She woke up to a darkened room, except the TV glowing with the XBOX logo, and someone laying down in the bed beside her.

 _This is bad,_ Ali thought, waking up.

“Hey,” Kellan said, his weight shifting the mattress. She panicked. She had just met him yesterday, they were just friends. Where was Stacy? “Wanna stay in or go out?”

“Um… go out,” Ali admitted, trying to brush the sleep from her eyes. She was laying in his bed, under the covers, this was asking for it. “Kellan, please don’t get mad, I- I want to get up now.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, close to her face.

“I- I’ve got morning breath, let me get some gum out of my purse,” she said, kicking the covers off.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

“Well… you just climbed into bed with me and it’s dark in here-”

“Here.” A lamp switched on. “Better?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting to her feet.

“For what?”

“I know about your ex. Stacy told me.”

Ali wiped the sleep from her eyes, surprised, and then she felt violated. “What did she say?”

“He cheated on you and you gave him a second chance. I’m sorry. He seems really stupid to me.”

“Yeah, well, let’s not talk about stupid,” she said, sorting through her purse. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in your bed. I really didn’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

“I promised Stace I’d leave you alone,” he said. “Ali, I wouldn’t try anything on you. You’re Stacy’s sister in Phi Kappa. And I’m not an asshole, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Who says I’m scared?” Ali scoffed, although her bravado was falling apart.

“I just realized we were laying bed together in a dark room… God, I’m sorry. But I promise, my intentions were true.”

There was a thunk overhead, and Ali burst out into nervous laughter. “Are you sure? Is that thunder and lightning?”

He blushed a little. “I’m a guy, my thoughts are rarely pure, but I don’t have to act on them all the time. I think you’re pretty cool, Ali. I’d never take advantage of you.”

“Thanks, Kellan.”

“So, once Stacy gets back from the liquor store, we’ll go out for dinner, alright? I know the best pub overlooking the city, you’ll like it, too.”

“Okay,” she said, getting a stick of gum out of her purse. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“It’s the next door down the hall.”

“Thanks.”

In the bathroom, she smoothed the make-up smeared under her eyes and texted Katie about what happened. She made some noise, flushing the toilet and running the tap, waiting for Katie’s response.

_You need to be more careful. A lot of guys see that as an invitation._

_You should be able to sleep in a guy’s bed without him assuming you want sex, but that’s the world we live in._

_Unfortunately._

Ali felt embarrassed.

_But it’s good that he minded his manners. He sounds alright. Is he cute?_

Ali rolled her eyes. _I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers, based on looks alone._

Katie responded almost immediately. _He knows I’ll personally kill him if anything happens to you, right?_

Ali snorted and turned off the tap. _He knows, stop threatening every guy you think likes me,_ she texted back. _We’re going out to dinner, soon. Tell you how it goes. ILY <3 A _

_ILY2 <3 _

Ali came out of the bathroom to find that Kellan had made the bed back up and was folding some laundry in the tiny laundry room. Stacy came in the door with a fifth of Jack Daniels and some schnapps and one of Kellan’s roommates (he had to have bought it for her). “I’m going to put my laundry up and we can go to dinner,” Kellan said. “Ross, you coming?”

“No, I’m gonna stay here and start on the fifth.”

“Alright bro,” Kellan called, going to the bedroom to put this laundry away.

He took Ali and Stacy to a family-owned Irish Pub with craft beers and “Scotch-Irish” cuisine (although Ali was certain that loaded fries and fried pickles weren’t what the ancient Celts ate) and Kellan ordered some beer for himself. Kellan wasn’t lying when he said there was an incredible view of the city from here: Ali’s home of Manhattan seemed so small. Kellan let Ali and Stacy try his beer, and at the end of the meal, he paid for all their meals and they went home to get into the peppermint schnapps to mix with some hot chocolate and watched _the Blues Brothers,_ which Kellan knew word-for-word.

After the movie, Ali and Stacy took the green line back to Manhattan, the last train.

“Do you like my brother?” Stacy asked.

“What?” Ali cried, embarrassed.

“Well, you broke up with Matthew back in October. It’s been two months. He said you were hot.”

“What?” Ali asked, blushing. “When?”

Stacy grinned. “Last night. You know he’s dating around right now, right?”

Ali shook her head. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Dad basically beat it into him, you know.”

Ali then told her about waking up in his bed.

“He promised he wouldn’t wake you up while I was out, Ross took me on a stupid trip around Hoboken and drove past the liquor store twice just to piss me off,” Stacy said. “Ross thinks he’s hysterical. But Kellan would be a good date for the Date Party. Or Formal.”

“Do _you_ think he likes me?”

“I don’t mind if he likes you,” Stacy said. “If anything, I’ve hated a lot of his past girlfriends, they just saw him as an ATM and bitched at him. Kellan’s pretty sweet, I can say that now that we don’t live together anymore. I’d like to see him with a nice girl.”

“I’ll think about,” Ali said. “He paid for our meal, that was gentlemanly..”

“He was embarrassed about something,” she said. “I get it now. Otherwise, he’d have never done that,” she scoffed.


	28. Police Brutality

Ali couldn’t find her sunglasses on Christmas morning after Katie came over for a Christmas present exchange, dinner, and going to the movies as a family. Katie brought a pair of her own to let her borrow until she replaced the lost pair. “See, if I had known you were going to lose your sunglasses, it’d have been an easy Christmas present,” Katie teased.

Ali remembered wearing them the day before on the way to Hoboken, and putting them back on in Jersey when she and Stacy went to see Kellan. She took a minute to call Kellan and ask him if he had found a pair of women’s sunglasses. 

“No, sorry I haven’t seen them,” Kellan said. “If I do, I’ll call you.”

“Thanks. It’s alright, they were cheap, I can afford to lose a pair.”

“So what are you doing today?”

“Finally having a Christmas celebration with Katie and Dad. What about you?”

“I’m at work, actually.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!”

“It’s alright, just getting some last-minute stuff done before New Year’s. I was going to ask you what you’re doing on New Year’s Eve.”

“Just stuff. I don’t know yet.”

“Would you like to go to Times Square with our group?”

“Like a tourist?”

“Nevermind.”

“No, it sounds fun! I’ve actually never gone to Times Square for New Year’s. Let me think about.”

“Call me if you want to go.”

“I will. I’ve got to get back to working on Christmas dinner.”

“Alright, Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too! Bye!”

She had to admit to herself that Kellan was pretty sweet. And a good guy. And he didn’t seem to have a problem with Greek life, but seemed to have had his fill of acting like an idiot in a fraternity. She didn’t particularly like the fraternity boys she had dated at SUNY, they seemed too wild and into partying. But Kellan seemed to want to start his life. But he still liked to go out and have a beer or two.

“Who was that?” Katie asked as Ali came back into the kitchen to check the oven.

“Stacy’s brother. You know I hung out with him yesterday in Hoboken, I thought I might have left my sunglasses at his place. He invited me to New Year’s with his friends in Times Square.”

Katie’s nose wrinkled. “Times Square on New Year’s Eve?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re New Yorkers, not tourists.”

“I know, but I really want to experience it for once. I think I’ll go out with him.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d be okay with me working on New Year’s,” Katie said carefully.

“New Year’s too? Man, you really are low man on the totem pole!”

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Well, it won’t be like this all the time. But I really do love being a cop and proving people wrong about them. Cops have a bad reputation, especially in ethnic neighborhoods. I think I’m starting to make friends with some people in the Lower East Side. People who don’t trust cops and are afraid of them. And they’re opening up, and… it’s so worth it. I know I made the right career choice, even if I’m broke right now.”

“I’m happy for you,” Ali said. “Even if you’re broke.”

“If I get through detective school, I’ll make more,” Katie admitted. “I might never be swimming in money, but that’s not the point of life, right?”

Ali’s phone chimed on the counter and she went to pick it up. She had a text from LYING SHITHEAD.

“What the hell?” Ali whined. “It’s Matthew!”

“What?”

“ _ Ali, I’m going to be in town for New Year’s Eve, do you want to get together for dinner or something? I still feel like we have a lot to work out. _ ” Ali felt her blood pressure rising.

“What’s left to discuss?” Katie snorted. “Ali, I think Matthew kept a lot of secrets from you, especially towards the end, okay?”

“How do I get it across to him that I don’t care to see him again?”

“You know the saying. The best way to get over a man is to get under another one!” Katie said, an evil smirk crossing her face right as their father walked into the kitchen.

Dad’s face twisted with disgust. “Ugh,” he said, and turned around to walk out. The girls burst into laughter.

* * *

Ali ignored Matthew’s message, and told Kellan she could go with him to Times Square for New Year’s Eve. A cold front was going through the Mid-Atlantic area, so Ali planned her outfit carefully to stay warm: she had on a pair of tights, a pair of black dress pants, and for her top, she wore a bulky turtleneck with a thermal shirt on underneath it. Katie had warned her to not shave her legs if she didn’t want to do it on the first date, and Ali scoffed, and shaved anyway. She dressed in a pair of knee-high boots and put on her thickest wool coat and accessories so she could stay warm, and headed out to Bar 54 near Times Square.

Times Square was crowded with tourists who came for the New Year’s Ball Drop already, and it was only nine. Ali located Bar 54 and the hostess let her check for her group. She found Kellan with a bunch of people from his work, not his frat brothers, and their dates and friends. 

“Ali!” Kellan cried. “Hey!”

“Hi!” she cried, crossing to their table. They hugged and he pulled out a chair for her. “Happy New Year!”

“Everyone, this is Alison Beckett, she’s a friend of Stacy’s, and I invited her out tonight because even though she’s a native New Yorker, she’s never been to the ball drop.”

“What? You’re kidding, right?” a black woman with a shaved head asked, laughing.

“When we were kids, Mom and Dad took us to do this every year,” Kellan explained. “When I was about ten, we stopped after a really bad experience when we couldn’t get home until about three in the morning, and Stace was too big to carry for my dad.”

“Where is she?”

“She went to a spa with my mom. Dad’s staying home and going to bed early. Buzzkill.”

“Aww, too bad!”

“If you saw this spa, you wouldn’t say that.”

Ali had a good time with them, and they managed to get her a drink at Bar 54. After they were done there, they went onto another bar in the Times Square area for another drink, and then another.

Ali was feeling all the alcohol, and Kellan offered to get her some New Year’s Swag. The crowd was growing and gathering, and it was so thick that Ali had to keep close to the group. Kellan always kept up with her, which was nice. She kind of considered him her date for the night, since he was the person she knew best out of the group. He was a gentleman, and was focusing on her as his date, even though it wasn’t official.

At midnight, they gathered in the ‘bow tie’ of Times Square and counted down the ball drop. Ali felt silly cheering with the crowd, ringing in the new year, but it was nice to be there with someone who was actually really polite to her. It was different from all the dates she had been on since Homecoming, and different from the end of her relationship with Matthew. And she felt a burning excitement, an arousal for a new man.

“Do you want to be my New Year’s kiss?” he asked, taking her into his arms.

“I’d like that,” she said under the roar of the crowd.

* * *

The crowd going home was a mess. Ali hadn’t stopped kissing Kellan after the first kiss at New Year’s, and she liked it.

“I doubt I’ll get home until four in the morning.”

“Your parent’s place? Surely they won’t mind.”

“That’s in the Upper West Side.”

Ali felt almost high. “Come with me?” she asked, her voice breathless, taking his hand. Her heart thundered in her ears. Did she just invite a man she hardly knew to come home with her? Her father was in Vermont, trying to avoid all the partying and alcohol for New Year’s, Katie was going to her own apartment after she got off patrol, this meant Ali had the apartment to herself. Her cheeks burned as Kellan considered it.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, just until the sun comes up,” she said softly, tugging him towards the Metro station. She wasn’t sure she could do this with him, invite him in. He gave in and followed her towards it. 

On the packed Metro, Ali kissed him in a corner of the crowded, noisy subway car, feeling his lips tremble, too. She felt deliciously devious, doing something she had only really seen in movies before, taking home a man that she hardly knew. She didn’t care if people were watching her, either. The trip back to her father’s apartment made her feel like she was going to burst. They held hands and practically ran, Ali leading the way. They got past the front desk, and unlocked the apartment door.

“My room is the first door on the left down the hall. I’ve got some condoms in my things, let me go look for them,” Ali said, not sure she’d ever catch her breath.

“Alright, but I have one in my wallet,” Kellan said.

“Oh, good,” she said, turning the key in the deadbolt. He followed her into the apartment, kissing her, and she fumbled with finding the lightswitch, shedding her coat and winter scarf and hat, and she led him with kisses to her bedroom. He tried to undress her, only to find the thermal top underneath. She found he was wearing long underwear, too. They realized it would be easier, once they reached her bedroom, to just take their own clothes off. 

He got his wallet out of his pants as he tossed his pants and shorts aside, revealing a rugby god physique that left Ali breathless. 

“Here,” he said, getting out the condom, and showing it to her.

“Okay,” she said, going to bed to lay down, trying to assume the most flattering pose possible. Good thing she hadn’t listened to Katie’s advice tonight about shaving her legs. He came over to her, tossing the little foil packet down beside her, kissing along her shoulders, her arm, down to her stomach, and along the palm of her hand, and up her forearm. She was shaking so hard, she couldn’t breathe for a moment. She realized he was shaking too, and looked equally terrified. His eyes ran over her body, admiring it and he seemed to luxuriate in her form. “God, you’re so beautiful.” His voice shook. “You’re okay with this?” he asked, his eyes looking almost glassy, smouldering. “We just met.”

“I’m okay with this,” she whispered between gasps of air. “I want this.”

And she welcomed him in that night without any regrets.

* * *

Ali and Kellan stayed in her bed that night, just talking and holding each other. Kellan was shaken after he loved her, his whole body trembling. He loved her differently than Matthew had. She hated comparing the two, but Katie had been right: she had no frame of reference with sex before. They had sex again that morning after Ali located a few unexpired condoms in one of her make-up bags.

Ali made a breakfast of eggs and bacon for him after he got up to take a shower. She realized what this meant, now: he wasn’t committed to her. He probably was dating other girls, too, probably sleeping with them as well. This bubble of amazing sex was being popped. She didn’t know him super-well, either, and hadn’t had an STD test since breaking up with Matthew, who had cheated on her and seemed to be having substance abuse problems these days, too.

“Hey,” Kellan said, dressed in his jeans from the night before and his thermal shirt, coming into the kitchen with damp hair. His cheeks were stubbly with beard scruff and Ali felt like she’d melt. “I smell like a girl now after using your shampoo.”

Ali went to him, chuckling, and planted a kiss on his lips. “I just want you to know, I’ve never done something like… like that before.”

“Stacy told me your ex cheated on you. I hope… I hope you weren’t still a… a virgin,” he said, blushing.

“No, I wasn’t,” she said, going back to the stove. “But I’ve only been with one other man, you didn’t deflower me or anything. Don’t worry. How do you take your eggs?”

“Over easy?”

“Okay, I can do that. There’s some coffee if you want it.”

In silence, went to the coffee maker and poured a cup for himself in silence. Ali felt the electricity between them, and she still trembled at the thought of last night. But it was over, now. He didn’t owe her anything, and she thought about how Katie’s first time had gone, and it scared her that he’d write her off callously. She could never tell Stacy about it, either. She waited as the egg sizzled in the pan. “Ali, I like you,” he said. “I want to see you again.”

Ali felt her heart leaping. “You do?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Maybe things were moving fast last night, but I liked it.”

“I feel a little stupid,” she admitted. “But I don’t mind. And um… I didn’t get an STD test after I broke up with my exboyfriend, but he did cheat on me, and I don’t know…”

“I’m not worried, we used a condom. Why don’t you go down to Planned Parenthood and get one? I’ll do it too.”

“I will… Thank you for understanding.”

“No, I… thank you. For trusting me last night. I know this isn’t easy for any woman.”

Ali nodded, and his lips brushed her forehead.

“What are you doing tonight?” He asked.

“Probably just hanging out with a book? Everything’s closed.”

“Do you want to come over? To Hoboken?”

“Sure,” she said, still trembling.

* * *

Ali felt like she was bursting at the good news that Kellan wanted to see her again. She walked him out from the apartment building into the sunny New Year’s Day cold, and bid him goodbye.

Upstairs, she realized she needed to tell Stacy that she was going to start dating Kellan casually, even if she didn’t tell her about the sex they had had. She felt like she owed Stacy that, since Stacy had suggested they date.

Ali was so excited about it, though. Upon entering the apartment again, she did a  _ tour-jete _ in a split leap out of joy.

After Ali took a hot shower, she came out to hear the TV on.

“Ali?” Katie called.

“Hey, I’m just getting out of the shower!” she called back, scurrying out of the bathroom to her bedroom to get dressed. Once she was dressed and dried most of her hair, she went to the living room where Katie was watching a DVD and eating some instant oatmeal.

“Hey,” Katie said. “How was your New Year’s?”

“Amazing. I’m so glad I went out with Kellan and his friends!” Ali admitted, flopping down beside her to braid her semi-damp hair. “Kellan wants to see me again!”

“That’s great!” Katie cried. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Yeah, he was my New Year’s kiss, too,” Ali sighed. She decided to omit the part about inviting him in last night; she had the change the subject fast. “How was patrolling?”

“Eh, a few violent drunks I had to take to the drunk tank to dry out, but other than that, it was a pretty tame night,” Katie said. “But… tell me more about Kellan. What’s he like?”

“Hmm,” Ali said, thinking to herself. She couldn’t admit Kellan had a Greek god’s physique and was amazing in general without giving away that she had slept with him. “Well, he’s really cute, Dark blonde hair, used to play intramurals and rugby at SUNY before he graduated, he still plays rugby on the weekends and works out. He works at Brewster-Keegan and is considering going back to law school. We game on XBOX, we played a game called  _ Burnout.” _

“I’ve heard of it.”

“He’s at least six-three and broad-shoulders, and... oh God, he’s actually  _ really _ hot!” she admitted, blushing.

“I didn’t read your messages, but Lying Shithead texted you a few times this morning,” Katie admitted, grinning. “And I wanted to know: why were there two dirty plates and coffee cups in the sink?”

“Nothing happened,” Ali said, trying to mask that she was outright lying to her sister by keeping her expression as blank as she could.

“Liar!” Katie cried, gleefully. “Did you bring Kellan home with you?”

“Okay, fine! I did!” Ali cried, jumping up to her feet.

“You hooked up!” Katie cried. “I knew it! Already? Did you shave your legs last night after I  _ specifically _ told you not to?”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Ali cried, running to the kitchen to put the offending dishes into the dishwasher… and to get out from under her sister’s judgment.

“You slut!” Katie laughed, grabbing her arm and pulling her back, and wrangling her face-down onto the couch, slamming her face into a cushion, pinning her arm behind her back. Ali yelled in surprise, although she wasn’t in pain. “You thought you could hide it from me that you just entered the land of whore-dom, officially?”

“I’m not a whore!” Ali shouted. “I’ve hung out with him three times, whores do it on the first date!” Katie’s hand came flying down on Ali’s ass, and she shrieked. “Ow!”

“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?” Katie was laughing; she thought this was hysterical.

“Police brutality!” Ali yelped, wrestling against Katie’s death grip.

“I’ll show you police brutality!” Katie replied, her open hand landing on her sister’s butt cheek again, and Ali screamed, although it didn’t hurt that much, and tried to not laugh. “That was nothing! That didn’t hurt!”

“Bite me, it did too!”

The front door opened. “Girls?” Dad’s voice echoed. He was back from the cabin. “What the hell is going on?”

Katie’s grip loosened and Ali shoved her off. “Don’t you say a word!” Ali warned.

“I’m teaching Ali a lesson.”

“Boo, you whore.”

“You should know! Congratulations, though.”


	29. Tough Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I was really thrown off my Stana's departure and then the vicious, ugly rumors that circulated about Nathan bullying her. After much consideration, and seeing named people accounting for both Nathan AND Stana's characters, I won't believe Nathan to be a monster or Stana to be a wallflower/wilting violet crybaby. They've both worked their asses off to show the fans appreciation and love for their devotion, and it would be a smack in the face for them to give legitimacy to the ungrateful ones that have turned on either of them. All the unnamed "sources" are protected by the 1st Amendment, but knowing the industry the way I do (I have a lot of impeccable journalist friends who've taught me how to do valid research and finding accredited sources) I know that these unnamed "sources" are just gossips trying to create juicy rumors to sell more tabloid copies. If you want to put me down for admitting I will never know the truth BTS, I won't respond, but you are free to. I just hope Nathan, Stana, and the rest of the cast recover quickly and find better projects to work on (I really hope they do, although Castle's set the bar pretty high). Same thing for the crew.

After New Year’s, Ali had spent every night that week with Kellan. He came to the City to take her out like a lady, and they did cheap, but fun things like drink a few beers at the local neighborhood tavern and he started teaching her pool. After the third night, Kellan asked her if she wanted to come back to Hoboken to his apartment with him.

“Nevermind,” he muttered. “We don’t have to.”

Ali had ached to spend another night with him, but going all the way to Hoboken just to have sex seemed like a lot, when her father was expecting her home. They hadn’t had sex since New Year’s, and it was almost a week later. She reasoned that if she didn’t have sex with him soon, he’d lose interest and move on. “I want to be with you, but can you get me back home before one?”

“In the morning?” he asked. “Sure! I’ve got a car. I don’t use it much, but I’ve got one.” He took her hand.

They went to Hoboken and once they got to his room, things started. Ali enjoyed it, being close to him, and afterwards, he held her and they talked. A moment later, he came back with a cold beer for them both, but she had sneaked off to the bathroom to pee. They started to play  _ Halo _ after she came back.

“I’ve never done this, you know? This is weird for me,” Ali admitted. 

“Played  _ Halo _ ?”

“No, being an uncommitted relationship with someone and having sex with them. It’s… odd. I feel weird sometimes, like, I know you care, but I’m sure I’m not the only girl you’re dating right now.”

“Well… true. Up to a point. I just broke up with someone a few weeks before Thanksgiving because I didn’t want to be the dick who only kept the relationship through Christmas to get presents from her. But, I have gone out to dinner with other girls since. I’m sure I’m not the only guy  _ you’re _ dating.”

“I don’t know if the guys I’m dating at SUNY count while I’m on break.”

“Do I not count since you’re on break?”   
“No! You count! A lot, because I don’t sleep with the guys I’ve dated at SUNY. I’m just struggling with... expectations. If I had sex with another guy tomorrow and you found out, what would that mean for us?”

She thought about how Matthew was still pestering her by text and email, and the secret she hid about being homeless for a while, and her father’s recovery, and that he had been in rehab last summer… She felt unsure. She had never seen herself being with someone who didn’t know these things, but she had been with Kellan, and he was completely clueless about her past. They didn’t  _ know _ each other very well.  “Kellan, what would you think of me if I wasn’t what you thought? You’ve slept with me and…”

“If you went out and had sex with another guy, I’d really have no reason to get angry about it because we’re not exclusive. But I think I might resent you a little.”

“But you’re sleeping with other girls too, isn’t that a double-standard?”

“I have, yeah. I guess it is… I guess I really like you and want to see where this goes.”

“Would you ever give up sleeping with other girls to be just with someone you’re casually sleeping with? To be  _ just _ with  _ her _ alone?” Ali felt sort of stupid, requesting this, thinking about her mother’s murder. When was the right time to tell him? When was it appropriate to keep it to herself? Did that put a mark on her? Nice girls didn’t have murdered family members. Murder happened to bad people who were doing bad things and got killed by another as a consequence, right? But her mother hadn’t been bad. How did she explain that?

“Well… potentially. Let’s see how we feel about each other down the road.”

“Is this relationship over when I go back to SUNY?”

“I hope not. I mean, I’m willing to come up to Albany to see you... if you want me to.”

She bit her lips together. “I’d like for you to,” she said. “But I know I don’t have the right to tell you not to sleep with other girls. I haven’t slept with anyone since I broke up with my ex. You’re literally guy number two for me. I feel really stupid and inadequate, sometimes.”

“Don’t,” he said, tossing aside the controller and rolling over to kiss her. “You’re amazing.  And if Stacy likes you, you’re good people.”

* * *

They had sex that night, and it left both of them feeling overwhelmed. They both ended up needing to hold each other again for a few minutes afterwards.

But it still didn’t stop the nagging paranoia that she probably didn’t measure up to other women he was sleeping with. And she couldn’t ask him if she measured up to them at all without driving home massive insecurity. 

It wasn’t his job to satisfy her insecurities and build her up as just some guy she was casually dating: no man looked for that in a serious girlfriend unless he wanted to use her for sex because it was easy to take advantage of a desperate girl. And Ali found herself in that situation, despite not wanting to be in it and she didn’t want to find out if Kellan was an asshole like that by offering her insecurities up more than she already had. She didn’t want him associating her with being desperate and scared every time he looked at her. But she was getting that way. Why hadn’t she waited to bring him home on New Year’s? Oh yeah, she got horny and she couldn’t resist him.

He drove her home and he showed her his iPhone and how it worked. She had heard about the iPhone, but there was nothing else like it on the market right now, she was fascinated. She held his hand and he promised her they’d keep in touch. She wasn’t so sure.

The next day, she started packing her things back up to go back to school. She and Kellan met for a quick lunch, and he promised they’d talk when she got to SUNY tomorrow.

When she left the restaurant, she texted Katie about hanging out a little before she left. 

_ Tomorrow morning, I can, _ Katie texted back.

Ali had also promised Shawn she’d come by the Drag Corral to visit. She spent the next night, while Kellan mysterious “plans”, going to see Fifi’s drag show and catch up. But the whole time, she was paranoid that he was having sex with another girl. She couldn’t concentrate on the show very well, because Kellan fucking someone else made her so jealous. Ali and Fifi caught up, and she told him about the new guy in her life, but that it was casual. Fifi reminded her that she needed to spend these years dating as much as possible. But Ali didn’t include that she was sleeping with him casually, either.

Ali woke up early and helped make breakfast for her father. As he was getting into the shower, Ali heard the front door open and Katie came in. “Hi,” Katie said. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to talk to someone about Kellan.”

Katie was still in her uniform and looked tired from third shift. She sat down at the breakfast nook and took off her hat and unbuttoned her top, revealing a bullet-proof vest, which she strapped out of it, groaning, and set aside, leaving herself in a grey undershirt with NYPD printed on it. “You like him a lot, don’t you?”

“I do,” Ali admitted, getting the coffee out, pouring a cup for Katie. “ And I feel really stupid, because I started sleeping with him before I realized I wanted to see him long-term.”

“Those hormones, they’ll get ya,” Katie admitted, fixing up her coffee with creamer.

“He’s seeing other women,” Ali admitted. “And he’s not ready to give that up. But, I wish I had spent time with him before I had jumped into bed with him. Gotten some kind of commitment. We’re going to have casual sex and casual dating, and nothing exclusive. It’s driving me insane, he’s all I can think about, and when he mysteriously says, ‘sorry, I’ve got plans,’ I try to go out and enjoy myself, but all I can think about is that he’s out with another girl. And he’s having sex with her and making all the same moves on her that made me feel so special and I hate myself for being so dumb and letting him make me feel so special. What do I do?”

“Well, that’s a tough question. Let’s look at the facts: you want things to be more serious with him, but you’ve already starting sleeping with him. You don’t know him that well, and sleeping with someone you don’t know well bothers you and it’s driving you insane.”

“Yeah. It’s like a vicious circle. I can’t ask him to stop seeing those other girls because we don’t know each other that well. But we’re already having sex, so we can get to know each other, but he’s seeing them and the same thing’s happening with them! I’m mad at myself for not holding out longer! God, I can’t stand it!”

“I’ve gotten into situations like this before,” Katie said. “You’re jealous; and it’s a learning experience.”

“I know I’m jealous! But… it’s because he’s such a good guy. And he’s nice and polite and thoughtful. I could see myself with him. And the sex actually is pretty good. But…”

“I guess that’s why you kind of have to do some quick evaluations with men as you meet them. Hold out on sex for the good guys, but try to get to know them. Or, maybe not.”

“We sound like a couple of sluts, don’t we?”

“Hey, I tried to welcome you into whore-dom and you refused to acknowledge that you’re a ho,” Katie smirked.

“I guess,” Ali said, chortling. “But… is this was being a grown-up woman is? And having grown-up relationships is like? How do you turn off the jealousy that just comes with having to share someone really wonderful with other women? I just want to have sex with one guy and be committed to him alone, focus on him. I don’t want to be a competition of who can have the most sex with him and do him the best, you know? It just seems to sad and empty and shallow to be like that. Is that what you have to put up with?”

“I know it sounds like I’ve slept with a lot of men since I turned nineteen, but I actually...  _ haven’t _ ,” Katie said, looking a little embarrassed. “I promise. But you learn a lot from your girlfriends. And from observing others. And keeping track of how you feel in these situations so you can learn from your mistakes. There’s enough terrifying diseases out there from STDs, so I don’t do casual sex too much because it detracts so much from having an actual relationship. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t make a man wait for months before we do it, but I like to have some kind of commitment, too. I’ve done casual sex a few times and it’s pretty empty, like you said. It made me insecure, and once I realized it, I realized I couldn’t do it.”

“You too? So I’m not an insecure freak for feeling like this?”

Katie nodded. “Look, if you like Kellan and you don’t want to have to wait to see how you measure up to the other women he’s sleeping with, just tell him that you can’t have sex with him any more unless he can make you the only one. Tell him that you don’t like being insecure and it’s not his place to fix you. And that you care enough about yourself to be with one man alone. I promise you, he won’t say yes to you right off the bat unless he’s smart enough to agree that you’re worth it. But if he’s worth it and likes you back enough, he’ll come around. It may take time, but give him a few months and he will. If not, he wasn’t worth it in the first place and was just sleeping with you for himself.”

“I’ve only known him two weeks,” Ali added. “Maybe I’m wrong.”   
“Okay, so you’re wrong about him. Maybe he’s putting up a front and telling you that you’re special is just a line he gives all the girls he dates. But you are so special, Ali, and I wouldn’t want a guy making you insecure and unhappy. You’ve come so far and you’re doing so well, and you’re my hero. I mean, the way you care about yourself, that’s my goal. Don’t waste time on him so you can move on to the next man that might want to commit more than he does. He’s not a good guy if he doesn’t realize how amazing you are. And use this as a lesson going forward.”

“When did everything degenerate into casual sex being just as normalized like casual dating?” Ali muttered.

“I don’t know,” Katie admitted. “I don’t want to waste my time on men who make me insecure. I don’t want you to, either.”

“Was it always this way?”

“I remember the way Mom talked about dating when she was a kid. It wasn’t like this at all for her back then. Or maybe she just didn’t accept it when a guy she was dating wanted to see other women and just kicked them to the curb. I guess we’ll never know.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of sad,” Ali admitted.

There was a long pause between the sisters. “Don’t think less of yourself because you tried it, though,” Katie said. “It’s not the end of the world that you tried something out and decided it wasn’t for you. You’re not less of a person or dirty or something.”

“You’re right,” Ali admitted.

“Good. I’m glad you’re looking at it like that. When’s your train leaving?”

“Noon,” Ali said. “I just want to be dropped off at eleven at Penn Station. Dad wants to drive me up and see the house.”

“Let him,” Katie said. “He’ll appreciate it.”

* * *

After Katie went home to go to bed, Ali called Kellan, who was on the train into Manhattan.

“You’re going back today?” he asked.

“I am. I think Dad’s taking me up, if I asked him.”

“I’ll miss you. Can I see you when I go up to SUNY to visit Stace-face?”

“Kellan, about that… I’ve been thinking… we started off really out of order for my tastes. I wish I had known you better before we started sleeping together. It’s been fun, but… I don’t like being in competition between a bunch of other women that I don’t have any idea who they are and what I’m up against. I don’t think sex should be a competition-”

“Ali, it’s not, I don’t see you like that at all-”

“I like you a lot, Kellan, but I’m not going to compete. Can you just listen to what I have to say? And not interrupt?”

“Okay, fine. Go ahead.”

“You either see my worth or you don’t. This casual sex thing, knowing that you’re sleeping with other women at almost the same time, it feels really empty to me to know I’m only worthy of  _ part _ of your attention while at the same time, can’t make a request for more of it because of how I slept with you so early. I’m starting to hate myself for feeling like it’s a competition. I don’t want to be competing for your attention. And I don’t want to put myself down if I don’t have to. If you were _ just _ sleeping with me and dating  _ only  _ me, it would be different. If you ever want to do that and look me up, we can talk. But, I’m only really comfortable dating you casually as long as sex isn’t involved. Sex is too important to me emotionally, and I don’t have everything I need from you to feel like I’m in a safe place in my heart, being intimate with almost no commitment. We got it involved too fast, and it was my mistake and we can’t go back.”

“So this is it? You’re breaking things off over the phone?” Kellan sounded a little insulted.

“I don’t think I’ll have time to see you before I leave, and it’s really been bugging me, so yeah, I’m breaking this off over the phone with you. If I had time, I’d do it person, but...”

“Yeah. I get it.”

“Are you mad at me? Because I don’t think I could be good for you if we continued on this way. I’d end up hurting you really bad, I’m sure. I think this is for the best that we end things now before we get really hurt.”

“No, I’m not mad at you… I guess. I mean… I guess you’ve really been honest with me, and I should appreciate it, but...”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t know. I’m kinda pissed right now.”

“I’m sorry. I feel really bad for this right now, but it’s for the best. I can’t be one of the many women you’re sleeping with. I think we could have been really good together, Kellan, but it’s just not the right time for you and me. I can’t demand that you just up and dump other women you’ve been seeing for longer than you’ve seen me.”

“Okay.” Kellan paused. “Okay, Ali. I’m sorry, too.”

Ali couldn’t understand why she wanted to cry so hard after they hung up. They had only been together two weeks at the most. They weren’t so emotionally involved, but Ali felt like crying. But she realized she had put so many emotions into sex with him, and it had been foolish. They had gotten along so seamlessly, so easily. She came to life around him. Her whole chest felt heavy, too. She had to get back to school anyways and didn’t want to cry the whole way there.

Her father insisted on driving her up to Albany, and Ali regretted it, but couldn’t deny him the favor.

“What’s wrong, Alidoodle?” he asked her after the third time his speaking to her shook her out of her thoughts.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing if you’re so distracted. You can talk to your ol’ dad.”

“It has to do with boyfriends and… stuff like that.”

“What’s going on?”

“Um… I can’t talk to you about it.”

“Sure you can!”

“Dad, it has to do with boyfriends and sex and relationships, and you always freak out when I talk those things. You get this disgusted look on your face and you walk out of the room, but you’re driving right now, you can’t go anywhere. So I’m not going to talk about it.”

“Is a boy you met pushing you to have sex?”

“Dad, I sort of… already did with him. And it was too soon. That’s the problem.”

“Oh Alison. You’re not ruined because you’re not a virgin any longer-”

“Dad, I haven’t been a virgin for a long time.”

Her father grimaced.

“See? You’re doing it. Making a face and you look like you want to jump out the window to get away from me.”

Dad took a deep breath. “Have you had sex with lots of boys? I’m assuming it started while you were on your own with Katie and I was… having trouble.”

“No, not really. Only two. It’s just the way the second one came about. We got involved too quickly, and it’s casual sex and casual dating and… I can’t ask him to give up the other women for me, he’s just met me and… we didn’t know each other too well.”

“You talk about casual dating. That was the big thing in the late 70s and early 80s before the AIDS epidemic. It was new, trendy, and I dated a lot of girls at once. My wallet didn’t like it too much, though. You’re being safe, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. Well… I guess that’s why I’m so old fashioned. It didn’t seem right. It felt like I was using women and it wasn’t the natural order of things for me. I realized that I’m a one-woman kind of guy. I like to focus all my attention onto one woman and make her feel special and loved. And then you get that back. And it’s amazing. It was amazing with your mother, when I met her. Nothing could ruin my day when she smiled at me. I wanted to return it to her. See, I couldn’t really do that for lots of women at once. I guess that’s why I haven’t really dated yet since your mother died, either. People make fun of people who do that, like it’s so stupid and there’s something wrong with you for not having as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. And I start to think... I think maybe there’s something wrong with them that they feel like they have to…  _ shame  _ you into acting like they do, because maybe deep down, they’re kind of unhappy with it, too. It’s not making them any happier, but they hope that one day, it will. And you know, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Knowing what you like and being so strong in it, that makes them uncomfortable that all their acting out and trying to please others isn’t going to get them the approval and love they want so badly. And it scares them. So they try to talk you into it so they don’t feel so stupid for letting other people use them like objects. You’re not an inanimate object, for men to use and dispose of, I don’t ever want you feeling that this is what you are. You’re a young lady with feelings and things you’re passionate about, and if a man can’t see that in you, I don’t want you dating him. Because he’ll never make you feel like… the whole world is right and it’s going to be okay. And I don’t want you ever feeling ashamed to the point that you have to do things that make you sad or unhappy to get boys to like you. Or love you. I think you’ve turned out to be a pretty amazing young lady, not with any of my help, miraculously. Well, anyway, that’s my take on it, being a grumpy old man and Reagan-era conservative.”

Ali was suprised: this was the most honest and vulnerable conversation she and her father had had since she was ten over a fishing pole on the lake and she told him she wanted to focus on ballet lessons over playing girl’s softball. Knowing that her father could speak to her about relationships finally made the whole situation with Kellan feel so much better, like she had done the right thing breaking things off with him. She finally felt like her father was listening and accepted her and felt tears threatening her eyes. “You know… you’re right, Dad. I broke things off with this guy because I felt like the casual sex thing was just going to make me more insecure and uncomfortable. Thanks for backing me up.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” he remarked. “Anytime, sweetheart.”

They started talking about things other than relationships, and before Ali knew it, they were in Albany. She had never had a situation where she and her father had started talking lost track of time. She had had conversations with Katie that drew on and on like this where she figured out what was right for her, but never her father. He had always been so distant.

She directed him to where her sorority house was, and the exterior lights had been installed, although it was still daytime, and she took him for a tour of her house, showing him the different rooms and the volunteer sign up wall, and the sorority composites, including the one from the fall that had just been made, and introducing him to her different sisters.

“I didn’t know you worked with so many great organizations,” he remarked, seeing the sign-up wall.

“It’s fun,” she said, “I feel good when I spend time helping others. It’s worth it to me.”

“I was proud of you before, but I didn’t realize how proud I  _ should _ be.”

“Let me show you my room I share with Jamie, Dad.”

“Sure! I’ll help you bring your things up, Doodle.”

* * *

The week classes started, Stacy knocked on the door to Ali and Jamie’s room.

“Als, can I talk to you a minute? Alone? I’m sorry, Jamie.”

“Oh, sure!” Jamie said, climbing down from the top bunk and hurrying out the door. 

Ali had a sense of doom in her stomach. “Did everything go okay when you got back?” she asked nervously.

“You know why I’m here, don’t you?” Stacy asked.

“It has to do with Kellan, right?”

“Yes, it does. I thought you two were hitting it off.”

“We were,” Ali said, not sure how to phrase it. “But… I made some mistakes. I’m not proud of them.”

“I don’t think he cares. After Christmas, all he could talk about was you. He kept on asking about you and that’s why I invited you to Hoboken to game at his apartment. What’s wrong with my brother that you’re making these excuses? Do you just not like him?”

“No, Stacy, I promise. I like him a lot. I like him so much,” Ali felt tears pricking her eyes. “I don’t know if you want to hear this, but I slept with him entirely too soon. That’s the mistake I made.”

“So you had sex with him after only knowing him a few days, big deal,” Stacy snorted. “He’s just been really upset since you dumped him-”

“Hey, I didn’t dump him-”

“Yes, you did. Over the phone. That was cold.”

“I made up my mind and I was about to leave for school, I didn’t have to time to see him face-to-face.”

“Ali, look… He did like you a lot. He said you were special.”

“Did you know I acted like a whore and slept with him on New Year’s Eve? And that he’s sleeping with and dating other women?”

“So what?” Stacy replied. “I have a few fuck buddies here at school.”

“Matthew was my first, alright? I’m still getting over him and… it doesn’t feel right to me to beg for scraps of Kellan’s attention and have to split up his time between other women. Who are probably better than I am and have more experience. That drove me insane. It made me sad. And it was my fault for not putting on the brakes and getting to know him better first. Alright?”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it!” Stacy snapped, looking annoyed.

“For you, maybe. But for me… it feels wrong. It made me insecure. And that’s me. I told Kellan that I really liked him, but I couldn’t do this casual sex thing. Maybe casual dating, but I couldn’t take back that I slept with him on a whim and make it right. It was a choice, and I made the wrong one with him. It really was me, not him, and that’s why I set him loose.”

Stacy sat down at Ali’s desk. “I’m… I guess I get it. Maybe… maybe I need to stop slutting around for a bit and see what you’re talking about.”

“Think about it. I mean, I’m not saying I wouldn’t sleep with a guy right after meeting him, but I really screwed things up with your brother.”

“I guess.”

“He’s not a bad guy. Hell, if I had waited until I knew him better, I wouldn’t have done that and we’d still be talking. Or maybe not.”

“I thought that this is the way the dating world works.” 

“I did, too. But I’ve only ever slept with Matthew before him and that’s it.”

“Really? I started having sex when I was fifteen, and I just thought if you don’t have a monogamous boyfriend, you need fuck buddies.”

Ali realized Stacy had a really low opinion of herself, and that’s why she had come up here to attack Ali for breaking up-- or breaking things off-- with her brother. “Why does it have to work like that?” Ali asked. “Why can’t we demand better for ourselves as women?”

“Well… I don’t know about you, but… _ needs _ . I think we need to go to the sex shop! Come on, let’s go, it’s open all night!”

“No way! Ew!”

* * *

Rush for Phi Kappa Mu happened the week after National Panhellenic had theirs. It was a stressful week, and the sorority was under a lot of pressure to recruit a good pledge class. Ali was assigned to the greeting committee after the interest party, and she had to greet the Rushees as they came in the door to the parties. It was an interview, basically, and she had to pass the girl off to another sister, and see if she’d be interested in rushing. Phi Kappa Mu didn’t have any official competition like the NPC sororities did, but still, making the Rushees feel wanted was important.

It was the second night of Rush that Ali got tapped on the shoulder after she passed off Eleanor, a cute freshman girl from Kentucky off to Kiersten.

“Ali, I don’t think I can keep this from you,” Stacy hissed over the noisy meeting room. “I’m sorry! I need to talk to you out back.” She took Ali’s hand and lead her out to the back porch. Kellan stood up from one of the adirondack chairs to see her.

“Kellan?” Ali asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll take it from here, Stace,” Kellan said. Stacy ran inside. “Ali, I thought about what you said, and I want to talk to you about it.”

“Kellan, this is not the time-”

“When  _ is  _ the time?” he asked hotly.

“When I’m not in the middle of a Rush party. I could get crucified for bringing boyfriend drama into a one!”

“Boyfriend?” he snorted, raising his eyebrow.

“Potential boyfriend drama,” Ali said, shivering in the Albany cold.

Kellan took his jacket off and put it on her shoulders. Normally, she wouldn’t accept a jacket in this situation, but it was freezing out. “I thought about what you said to me, and it makes sense. And you’re right: we did start off too soon with sex, but I want to be with you. I don’t feel the same way about the other women I’m seeing like I do you, and once I realized that, I came straight up here to tell you- to your face-”

“Hey!” Ali cried, feeling peeved. “Look, can this wait?”

“I’ll wait out here all night if I have to.”

“You don’t  _ have _ to. I’ll give you your jacket back-”   
“No, have to. If it prove to you that I want to be serious. I broke things off with the other women I was seeing. I just want you. And that’s it.”

Ali felt faint, like the blood was draining out of her head for a moment and she’d pass out. He was offering to see her alone? No other women for her to compete with? She couldn’t fathom it right now. “I’ve got to go,” she said, shedding the jacket. “Let me think about it and I’ll come out to get you after the party’s over.”

“Ali.” He tugged her arm. “I’ll be waiting.”

Ali finished her Rush party duties, but her mind wasn’t a hundred per cent there. At the post-Rush meeting that happened once the last girl walked out the door, Ali did her recommendations on Rushees, and once the meeting was dismissed, she ran outside to find Kellan, who was curled up in the adirondack, trying to stay warm.

“You were serious?” she asked.

“I was.”

She took his hand. “Come on, we can go to the basement. Jamie’s in our room right now, trying to get ready for bed.”

She brought him in and downstairs, turning on the heater in the finished basement. Kellan sat down on one of the couches and Ali got throw blanket with the sorority’s letters on it to warm him up. She curled up beside him.

“How serious were you about just seeing me? You’ve broken things off with the other girls?”

“The other  _ women _ , yes. You kept on saying you really liked me too, and we just started having sex too soon for people who weren’t exclusive, and… I think you’re right. I didn’t feel the same way about the others as I felt about you. I knew what I needed to do. I came up here to throw myself up on the altar for you.”

“You did?” she asked, stroking his cheek. “And you waited all night outside in weather in the teens.”

“I didn’t even know if you’d say yes. Is this a yes?”

“Okay, I’ll give being with you a try. I’ve never been in a long distance relationship, you know.”

“I haven’t, either.”

“So this means we have to take turns coming to see each other on the weekends and have a lot sex when we can.”

“Are you above sending nudes over text?”

“You first,” she said, grinning.


End file.
